Legacy voice cascades (ASR → LLM → TTS) introduce multi-second round-trip latencies that break the conversational illusion. Modern multimodal speech APIs—such as the Gemini Live API and OpenAI Realtime API—stream audio directly over WebSockets, slashing conversational turn-taking latency below 300 milliseconds. This architectural guide implements a production-grade full-duplex client with local Silero-VAD barge-in detection.
Building Real-Time Full-Duplex Voice AI Agents: WebSockets, Gemini Live API & Sub-300ms Turn Latency
✦ Executive Research Brief · Hardware-Verified in Radar Lab ✦
An end-to-end architecture guide for low-latency full-duplex conversational voice agents. We analyze WebSocket audio framing (PCM 16/24kHz), Voice Activity Detection (Silero VAD) interruption dynamics, and sub-300ms turn-taking orchestration.