#USA #New York #Voice AI #Hume AI #Andrew Ettinger

Hume AI Welcomes Andrew Ettinger as CEO

In a significant development for the artificial intelligence landscape, Hume AI, a front-runner in voice AI research, has announced the appointment of Andrew Ettinger as its new Chief Executive Officer. Known for its commitment to aligning AI with human well-being, Hume AI is poised to leverage Ettinger's extensive experience to accelerate its momentum in research services.

A Leader with Vision

Ettinger brings 15 years of leadership experience in data and AI infrastructure. Before joining Hume AI, he made considerable contributions at companies such as Pivotal, Astronomer, and Appen, where he oversaw teams responsible for generating over $2 billion in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). His last role was as Chief Revenue Officer at Appen, where he led the commercial operations that supported hyperscalers and AI labs with essential datasets and large language model evaluation software.

In his own words, Ettinger stated, "Voice in AI is evolving from a feature to the primary interface for the next generation of applications and devices. Understanding emotion will be essential to unlocking AI's full potential, and that will require ongoing systems that incorporate human-in-the-loop feedback. That's where Hume's data, annotation, and reinforcement-learning infrastructure are setting the pace for the industry."

New Partnerships and Licensing Agreements

The leadership change comes alongside news of growth in Hume's research partnerships. The firm has entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement for specific technologies with Google, a move that further establishes Hume's expertise in the domain of emotionally-grounded AI solutions. Co-founder Alan Cowen has joined Google, signaling a strong alliance between the two companies.

Cowen remarked, "Hume's infrastructure—built around emotionally grounded data, evaluation, and reinforcement learning—is exactly what frontier labs and enterprises need as voice becomes the primary interface for AI. Having spent time getting to know Andrew, I'm confident that he is the right leader to take Hume to the next level as the leading research infrastructure provider for voice and emotion."

Hume's Evolving Research Landscape

With Ettinger's leadership, Hume AI is set to develop an innovative research platform that will facilitate a growing number of partnerships. This platform includes a robust voice evaluation stack, dynamic data pipelines, and a unique reinforcement-learning 'voice gym' that aims to train AI models to communicate in more realistic and empathetic tones. The company is committed to enhancing its cutting-edge voice AI models with plans to launch the next generation of text-to-speech and speech-to-speech models very soon.

Ettinger expressed optimism about Hume's financial growth, commenting, "Separate from the agreement with Google, Hume is on track to generate more than $100M in revenue this year from research partnerships with frontier AI labs and AI-first enterprises. The accelerating demand for our voice data, annotations, post-training workflows, evaluation systems, and reinforcement-learning infrastructure is driving this success."

Bridging Research with Practical Implementation

As noted by John Beadle, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Aegis Ventures and lead investor in Hume AI, the company has transitioned into a vital research infrastructure partner for leading AI laboratories. He highlighted, "What has always distinguished Hume is the strength of its AI research foundation in voice, paired with the capabilities to build and deploy speech language models at scale. Andrew has a rare track record of translating research-grade capabilities into durable, category-defining businesses, which makes him uniquely positioned to lead Hume's next chapter."

Overall, Hume AI is embarking on an exciting new phase of growth under Andrew Ettinger's leadership. With its expanding partnerships and innovative approaches to voice AI, the company is setting itself up as a pivotal player in the field of AI technology aimed at enhancing human interactions and understanding.