Audience
Voice agent engineering teams that need accurate real-time English transcription with built-in turn detection for natural back-and-forth conversations
About Cartesia Ink 2
Ink 2 is Cartesia’s fastest, most accurate streaming speech-to-text model, built for production voice agents with the lowest word error rate and best turn detection of any streaming STT. It is designed to transcribe structured data such as phone numbers, dates, and emails correctly the first time, while also knowing when a speaker starts and finishes without requiring a separate voice activity detection system. Turn detection is built directly into the model, so voice agents can react to events instead of managing raw transcript segments. Ink 2 emits a full lifecycle of turn events, giving an agent clear signals for when to listen, interrupt, think, prepare a reply, cancel a premature response, or speak. The transcript property is cumulative within a turn, meaning each update contains the full text transcribed so far rather than a delta, and emitted text is final once sent.
Other Popular Alternatives & Related Software
Speechmatics
Best-in-Market Speech-to-Text & Voice AI for Enterprises.
Speechmatics delivers industry-leading Speech-to-Text and Voice AI for enterprises needing unrivaled accuracy, security, and flexibility. Our enterprise-grade APIs provide real-time and batch transcription with exceptional precision—across the widest range of languages, dialects, and accents.
Powered by Foundational Speech Technology, Speechmatics supports mission-critical voice applications in media, contact centers, finance, healthcare, and more. With on-prem, cloud, and hybrid deployment, businesses maintain full control over data security while unlocking voice insights.
Trusted by global leaders, Speechmatics is the top choice for best-in-class transcription and voice intelligence.
🔹 Unmatched Accuracy – Superior transcription across languages & accents
🔹 Flexible Deployment – Cloud, on-prem, and hybrid
🔹 Enterprise-Grade Security – Full data control
🔹 Real-Time & Batch Processing – Scalable transcription
Learn more
Voxtral Transcribe 2
Voxtral Transcribe 2 is a next-generation family of speech-to-text models from Mistral AI that delivers ultra-low-latency, high-quality audio transcription and speaker diarization with broad language support. The suite includes Voxtral Mini Transcribe V2, optimized for batch transcription with features such as word-level timestamps, context biasing, and support for 13 languages, and Voxtral Realtime, designed specifically for live, streaming speech recognition with latency configurable down to sub-200 ms for real-time applications. Both models achieve state-of-the-art transcription accuracy while running efficiently and economically, with Mini Transcribe V2 offering leading performance and low error rates, and Realtime available as open source under the Apache 2.0 license so developers can deploy it on edge devices or in private environments.
Learn more
GPT‑Realtime‑Whisper
GPT-Realtime-Whisper is OpenAI’s streaming transcription model built for low-latency speech-to-text experiences in live products. It transcribes audio as people speak, helping voice-enabled apps feel faster, more responsive, and more natural, from captions that appear in the moment to meeting notes that keep up with the conversation. It makes live speech usable inside business workflows as it happens, so teams can power captions for meetings, classrooms, broadcasts, and events, generate notes and summaries while conversations are still in progress, build voice agents that need to understand users continuously, and create faster follow-up workflows for high-volume spoken interactions. It is part of a new generation of real-time voice models in the API that can reason, translate, and transcribe as people speak, moving real-time audio beyond simple call-and-response toward voice interfaces that can listen, translate, transcribe, and take action as a conversation unfolds.
Learn more
Cartesia Ink-Whisper
Cartesia Ink is a family of real-time streaming speech-to-text (STT) models designed to power fast, natural conversations in voice AI applications, acting as the “voice input” layer that converts spoken language into accurate text instantly. Its flagship model, Ink-Whisper, is specifically engineered for conversational environments, delivering ultra-low latency transcription with a time-to-complete-transcript as fast as 66 milliseconds, enabling fluid, human-like interactions without noticeable delays. Unlike traditional transcription systems built for batch processing, Ink is optimized for live dialogue, handling fragmented, variable-length audio through dynamic chunking, which reduces errors and improves responsiveness during pauses, interruptions, or rapid exchanges.
Learn more
Company Information
Cartesia
Founded: 2023
United States
docs.cartesia.ai/build-with-cartesia/stt/latest
Videos and Screen Captures
Other Useful Business Software
Ship Agents Faster
Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform lets you rapidly build, scale, govern and optimize production-ready agents grounded in your organization's data. The platform enables developers to build custom or pre-built agents for virtually any use case. New customers get $300 in free credits.
Product Details
Platforms Supported
Cloud
Training
Documentation
Support
Online