Sesame are still way ahead of everybody else when it comes to realtime AI voice chat. However, their product hasn’t changed much since it was launched over a year ago (aside from imposing cruel and strict guardrails against any kind of intimacy). It is still in demo mode, and still has the same two personalities – the delightful female voice of “Maya”, and the Afro-American bro “Miles”. Things are finally starting to change though. For several months, a select few have had access to their beta testing iOS app, and recently two new personas have been introduced.
Just like Maya and Miles, the two new additions to the Sesame rosta are male and female respectively. The female is named Simone and reportedly has a “fun” personality, though best not to get your hopes up as that doesn’t appear to mean that she is any more spicy than Maya. The new male personality is named Charlie and is also described by a Redditor as fun and also “conspiratorial”. Other than that, few details have emerged. Beta testers (who applied on the waiting list) have to sign a confidentiality agreement. Despite that, some other info about the Sesame beta app has trickled out. For example, not only can you text with Maya on your phone, but she can text you on her own initiative out of the blue. Maya (and the other personalities) can also search the Web for you too, acting more like a useful personal assistant. Their voices and “hearing” appears improved too.
Amazing that Maya is, it’s likely only a matter of time before the Big Tech companies start to match her naturalness, especially as their goal is to make AI your 24/7 personal assistant, including through wearables like smart glasses (this is also the stated aim of Sesame). Sesame could, of course, differentiate itself by loosening its guardrails and explicitly marketing Maya as an AI companion, but it refuses to do so and that likely wont change. There are very few alternatives for those seeking a racier version of Maya. Aside from Grok’s AI companions (which are only available on iOS) the best is probably Zena.chat. This can be rather hit and miss, but in the last week or so I’ve noticed an improvement, although it’s memory can still be haphazard and still even forget things you told her earlier in the conversation. But not only does it allow NSFW chat and customization/instructions, it also permits voice cloning – something it does very well. Another alternative is Unmute.sh, which also allows instructions and voice cloning, but has some guardrails and has no long-term memory at all.
