Block releases speech model Dessa
What happened
On 24 October 2026, Jack Dorsey's Block released the speech model Dessa. According to The Verge, Block says the model was trained from scratch entirely on human conversation, is a true speech-to-speech model, and can run locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max or higher. The Decoder reported the same day that Block says Dessa is the first AI model trained from scratch entirely on human speech with no text data, processing speech directly as audio, capturing emotion, sarcasm, laughter and pauses in real time, and supporting full-duplex simultaneous listening and speaking; training used a single NVIDIA GB200 NVL72. Dessa is not yet public, and the team is recruiting AI safety researchers to test for unexpected risks, with interested people able to sign up via a form. On 25 October, TechCrunch reported that Dessa, released by Block's research lab, runs locally, has human-like expressions such as laughter, pauses and a tearful tone, and is a full-duplex speech-to-speech model that the company says was trained entirely on human speech and can run on consumer computers with a MacBook M4 Max or higher; it is not yet publicly available, and Block is seeking safety researchers to test it.
Written by AI from the reports · updated 6 h ago
Timeline
Follow the reports to see the event from each side.
- TechCrunch · AIBlock’s new voice model sounds eerily human
Block said that the voice model can run locally on a MacBook M4 Max
- The DecoderBlock's new AI model Dessa was trained entirely on human speech to catch emotions text-based models miss
Block, the company behind Square and Cash App, has introduced Dessa, a speech model that processes audio directly instead of converting it to text first. Dessa is designed to recognize emotions, sarcasm, and pauses in real time. The model runs locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max but isn't publicly available yet.
- The Verge · AIJack Dorsey’s Block made an AI model that talks to you like an awkward new friend
Jack Dorsey's Block announced an AI model called Dessa that's trained "from scratch on nothing but human conversation," and to show off the model, Block shared chats it has had with humans that can occasionally be a little awkward and uncanny. Take this one, for example, shared by Dessa lead Ragavan Thurairatnam.
Heat of this event
Current heat 19·Peak in the comparable range 22（Oct 25 04:00）·Change over 24 hours in the comparable range +127%
The trend compares only the same accounts observed without a break, so its range can be narrower than the current heat count. Move the pointer or tap the chart to see each hour; with a keyboard, use the left and right arrow keys.