What would this face sound like? Synthetic voices from a single photo
At IberSpeech 2026 we presented a method that generates a plausible voice from a photo. Here's how it works, what we measured and how far it goes.
Blog
Voice, conversation and AI
Articles on speech technology and conversation design, and the stories behind our projects.
Building a chatbot in 2018 and building one today
From Alexa intents and flows to agents built on language models: what has changed in building a chatbot or voice assistant, and what hasn't.
Can you tell if a text was written by AI?
Watermarks and AI-generated text detectors: how they work, why they fail on human writing, and why the problem is further along in audio and images.
Evaluating an agent before your customers use it
How to evaluate an AI assistant or agent before launch: what to measure, test conversations, a model as judge, attacks and testing with real people.
An assistant repeats the prejudices in its data
Where the biases in AI assistants and agents come from, how they show up in a conversation or a voice, and what you can measure to reduce them.
How many agents does it take to answer a phone call?
Multi-agent systems: when splitting a task across several AI agents pays off, when it creates more problems than it solves, and what changes on a phone call.
In a newsroom with agents, who checks the work?
Newsrooms are automating more and more and moving toward AI agents. Why checking everything by hand doesn't scale, and why you need an expert in the loop.
What it takes to call a chatbot an agent
What an AI agent is and how it differs from a chatbot: tools, memory, planning and autonomy, plus questions to find out what you're actually being offered.
Is it my turn to speak?
Why voice agents talk over people or go quiet: how humans manage turn-taking and how machines try to detect it.
Three ways to build a voice agent, and none is perfect
Cascaded, speech-to-speech or hybrid voice agents: how each architecture works, what you gain and lose in latency, control and voice, and when to choose each.
What changes when your app learns to talk
Adding an AI chat to an app looks easy. The ways to build a conversational app and the challenges that remain: context, errors, testing and cost.
What to ask yourself before building an assistant
Before choosing technology for a chatbot or voice assistant: which conversations you want to have, where, through which channel, how you'll measure success and what to prototype.
Why doesn't my voice assistant understand me?
Noise, accent, unusual words or a cut-off turn: where the chain breaks between what you say and what a voice assistant understands, and what you can do about it.
Before you clone a voice, ask whose it is
A voice identifies a person and the law protects it. What Spanish and European rules say, which cases show it, and what a voice licensing agreement should include.
What reads well doesn't always sound good
Text written for reading usually sounds wrong in a voice assistant. Six adjustments for writing for the ear: sentences, options, punctuation, numbers and pauses.
What exactly does a synthetic voice copy?
Timbre, intonation, pauses, pronunciation and accent: what a speech synthesis model learns from recordings, what it imitates well and where it still falls short.
How many minutes of audio does it take to clone a voice?
Cloning a voice can take three seconds of audio or several hours. We explain zero-shot cloning, professional cloning and voice conversion, and when to use each.
Accessible information thanks to AI: RTVE Elecciones Inteligencia Artificial
Real-time election coverage with artificial intelligence for towns with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants.
Victoria, the synthetic voice that reads sports news
A pioneering project to create an AI-generated voice for PRISA Radio to read sports news, the first of its kind launched in Spain.
Technology for turning text into speech
Want to know which tools to use to bring your written content to life? Here are a few keys.
Always evolving
After our third year, we look back on how we've evolved inside and out, along with our new brand.
Alexa, I want to talk to Carlos Latre
An Alexa skill to chat, laugh and brighten your day with comedian Carlos Latre. Ask Carlos Latre to cheer you up with a joke or a motivational quote.
12 books to learn about voice interfaces
There's no better way to learn about voice interfaces than a good read. So we've put together a first list of reference books on speech technology and conversation design, grouped by key topic so you can choose according to your profile or role in building VUIs.
Alexa, launch Mi Héroe a la Batalla
Fight incredible enemies and reach the highest hero level you can. Get your hero into the Hall of Fame.
Monoceros Labs, a featured Amazon Alexa agency
Monoceros Labs is now a recognized agency on Amazon Alexa's official list of partner agencies in Spain, highlighting our Alexa Skills services: strategy, design and development.
Alexa, open Edad de los Famosos
Guess how old celebrities are, game-show style, just like on the Spanish TV show El Concurso del Año.
8 tips for building good Alexa skills in Spanish
Our design tips for building good Alexa skills (voice apps for Amazon Alexa) in Spanish… and getting them certified quickly.
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What would this face sound like? Synthetic voices from a single photo
At IberSpeech 2026 we presented a method that generates a plausible voice from a photo. Here's how it works, what we measured and how far it goes.
Building a chatbot in 2018 and building one today
From Alexa intents and flows to agents built on language models: what has changed in building a chatbot or voice assistant, and what hasn't.
Can you tell if a text was written by AI?
Watermarks and AI-generated text detectors: how they work, why they fail on human writing, and why the problem is further along in audio and images.
Evaluating an agent before your customers use it
How to evaluate an AI assistant or agent before launch: what to measure, test conversations, a model as judge, attacks and testing with real people.
An assistant repeats the prejudices in its data
Where the biases in AI assistants and agents come from, how they show up in a conversation or a voice, and what you can measure to reduce them.
How many agents does it take to answer a phone call?
Multi-agent systems: when splitting a task across several AI agents pays off, when it creates more problems than it solves, and what changes on a phone call.
In a newsroom with agents, who checks the work?
Newsrooms are automating more and more and moving toward AI agents. Why checking everything by hand doesn't scale, and why you need an expert in the loop.
What it takes to call a chatbot an agent
What an AI agent is and how it differs from a chatbot: tools, memory, planning and autonomy, plus questions to find out what you're actually being offered.
Is it my turn to speak?
Why voice agents talk over people or go quiet: how humans manage turn-taking and how machines try to detect it.
Three ways to build a voice agent, and none is perfect
Cascaded, speech-to-speech or hybrid voice agents: how each architecture works, what you gain and lose in latency, control and voice, and when to choose each.
What changes when your app learns to talk
Adding an AI chat to an app looks easy. The ways to build a conversational app and the challenges that remain: context, errors, testing and cost.
What to ask yourself before building an assistant
Before choosing technology for a chatbot or voice assistant: which conversations you want to have, where, through which channel, how you'll measure success and what to prototype.
Why doesn't my voice assistant understand me?
Noise, accent, unusual words or a cut-off turn: where the chain breaks between what you say and what a voice assistant understands, and what you can do about it.
Before you clone a voice, ask whose it is
A voice identifies a person and the law protects it. What Spanish and European rules say, which cases show it, and what a voice licensing agreement should include.
What reads well doesn't always sound good
Text written for reading usually sounds wrong in a voice assistant. Six adjustments for writing for the ear: sentences, options, punctuation, numbers and pauses.
What exactly does a synthetic voice copy?
Timbre, intonation, pauses, pronunciation and accent: what a speech synthesis model learns from recordings, what it imitates well and where it still falls short.
How many minutes of audio does it take to clone a voice?
Cloning a voice can take three seconds of audio or several hours. We explain zero-shot cloning, professional cloning and voice conversion, and when to use each.
Accessible information thanks to AI: RTVE Elecciones Inteligencia Artificial
Real-time election coverage with artificial intelligence for towns with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants.
Victoria, the synthetic voice that reads sports news
A pioneering project to create an AI-generated voice for PRISA Radio to read sports news, the first of its kind launched in Spain.
Technology for turning text into speech
Want to know which tools to use to bring your written content to life? Here are a few keys.
Always evolving
After our third year, we look back on how we've evolved inside and out, along with our new brand.
Alexa, I want to talk to Carlos Latre
An Alexa skill to chat, laugh and brighten your day with comedian Carlos Latre. Ask Carlos Latre to cheer you up with a joke or a motivational quote.
12 books to learn about voice interfaces
There's no better way to learn about voice interfaces than a good read. So we've put together a first list of reference books on speech technology and conversation design, grouped by key topic so you can choose according to your profile or role in building VUIs.
Alexa, launch Mi Héroe a la Batalla
Fight incredible enemies and reach the highest hero level you can. Get your hero into the Hall of Fame.
Monoceros Labs, a featured Amazon Alexa agency
Monoceros Labs is now a recognized agency on Amazon Alexa's official list of partner agencies in Spain, highlighting our Alexa Skills services: strategy, design and development.
Alexa, open Edad de los Famosos
Guess how old celebrities are, game-show style, just like on the Spanish TV show El Concurso del Año.
Alexa, open Palabras Británicas
Your assistant for learning English by training your ear.
8 tips for building good Alexa skills in Spanish
Our design tips for building good Alexa skills (voice apps for Amazon Alexa) in Spanish… and getting them certified quickly.
Alexa, open Veo Veo
Play I Spy with Alexa by guessing things in her virtual house.
Historias para Recordar: stories to exercise memory
We've built a voice app that helps people with Alzheimer's exercise their memory.
Reflections: the problem of loneliness
Loneliness is a serious problem in aging, technologically hyperconnected societies. But technology can also help us feel less isolated and transport us to other places.