OpenAI API Now Supports Building Voice Agents

It’s now possible to offer AI-powered voice agents in applications via an OpenAI API, the company announced this week.

The API now makes it possible to offer customizable voice agents via new speech-to-text and text-to-speech audio models in the API, the company said.

OpenAI is also introducing a new text-to-speech model with better “steerability,” which is the ability to guide or control an AI system’s behavior and output according to human intentions or specific objectives. So, developers can instruct the text-to-speech model to speak in a specific way. For example, the developer could tell the AI to “talk like a sympathetic customer service agent.”

There’s a demo where developers can play with the new text-to-speech capabilities. Coders can share their creations via X @OpenAIDevs for the opportunity to win a prize.

These models are built upon GPT-4o and GPT-4o-mini and perform better than Whisper and OpenAI’s legacy text-to-speech models, both of which are still supported. These new audio models are more cost-effective as well, OpenAI added.

The company also released Agents SDK, which simplifies the development process for voice agents. That means developers can now turn the text agents they’ve built with our Agents SDK into full-on voice agents with a few lines of code, the company noted.

TanStack Start Partners With Netlify for Deployment

Tanner Linsley, creator of TanStack, announced Tuesday that TanStack is partnering with Netlify to deploy TanStack Start.

TanStack Start is a full-stack React framework that runs on TanStack Router. It’s currently in beta.

For Netlify, this is not a new move. It also has partnered with Astro and Solid, for instance. And it makes sense that a hosting platform would partner with JavaScript frameworks.

In its announcement, TanStack explained why it chose Netlify.

“Netlify has earned its reputation as the ultimate deployment platform for modern web developers,” the team wrote. “Its focus on speed, simplicity, modularity, and flexibility aligns perfectly with TanStack Start’s vision for full-stack development.”

In particular, Linsley liked Netlify’s:

• No-config simplicity to support deploying TanStack Start apps in seconds, with zero setup hassle;
• Serverless power, specifically Netlify Functions’ ability to enable dynamic, real-time features;
• A global edge network; and
• Developer-first tools.

As part of the deal, Netlify launched a full-stack AI chatbot starter template that “showcases TanStack Start’s powerful data management capabilities alongside Netlify Functions,” he wrote.

Linsley also noted that developers should expect more updates, new features and deeper collaboration between TanStack Start and Netlify. On March 31, TanStack will host a special TanStack Start episode on Netlify’s Remote Desk series with live demos, developer tips and a Q&A to show how to unlock the full potential of TanStack Start on Netlify.

Node.js Now Has Official Discord

The Node.js community now has an official Discord server, the team revealed Monday. “Official” is the keyword there.

Of course, this isn’t the first Discord server where developers could discuss Node.js, but this one is run by the OpenJS Foundation and Reactiflux, which is a a large Discord server community for developers that’s focused on React, React Native, Redux, Jest, Relay, and GraphQL.

Node.js is an open source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment that runs JavaScript outside a web browser. It’s primarily used for for building server-side applications, real-time applications, APIs and micro services.

The server is open and ready for members.

Bun Now Offers Better Node-API Compatibility

While we’re on the subject of Node, the runtime Bun is now offering better Node-API compatibility as of version 1.2.5.

Bun is a JavaScript runtime, package manager, bundler, and test runner. That may seem a bit confusing, since both are runtimes and Bun was designed as a faster alternative to Node.js. But the Node-API compatibility allows Bun to seamlessly integrate with the Node.js ecosystem of native add-ons.

In this update, Bun has almost completely rewritten its Node-API implementation, according to creator Jarred Sumner.

“Node-API is a C interface that allows you to write a module in highly-optimized native code and embed it in any compatible JavaScript runtime,” Sumner explained. “This can speed up performance-critical code and also allows reusing existing native libraries in languages like C, C++, Rust, or Zig. We now have much better compatibility with Node.js’s implementation than we did before, ensuring that Node-API modules that work in Node also work in Bun.”

He explained that their approach to the problem of Node-API compatibility was to focus on running Node’s tests in Bun. Version 1.2.5 passed 98% of Node’s js-native-api test suite, which covers the APIs to interact with core JavaScript types and execution, Sumner said.

He added that this version also fixed 75 bugs and addressed 162.

Bots and Gamers

Many developers game, so here’s a short news item from a recent survey that asked about bot use in games.

Research firm Echelon Insights surveyed 818 adults and found that 59% of gamers regularly encounter unauthorized, third-party bots in games. Only 9% said they had never encountered a bot, a surprisingly low number.

Seventy-one percent of gamers surveyed also said that bots are ruining multiplayer competition, while 74% responded that bots are making it less fun to play certain games.

Some gamers — 18% — have responded by stopping a game completely.

The survey was conducted on behalf of Sam Altman’s blockchain project, World Network. As a response to the findings, World Network and Razer have partnered to prioritize human gamers and elevate the gaming experience for millions of gamers in the age of AI. They are offering Razer ID Verified by World ID as a “secure, single sign-on of human technology” that is designed to create a safer and more authentic gaming environment. Creating the ID is free but tokens must be purchased.

The post OpenAI API Now Supports Building Voice Agents appeared first on The New Stack.

In other developer news: TanStack partners with Netlify for TanStack Start deployment, Node.js gets an official discord, and Bun updates.