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Hume AI is a research lab and technology company developing an AI toolkit for detecting human emotions based on vocal and nonverbal communication. Hume AI's models measure human expressive behavior in images, videos, audio, and text, allowing developers to build applications that better understand a user's intents, preferences, and outcomes. Hume AI provides developers with two APIs for accessing its suite of expression measurement models for face, voice, and language. This includes Batch API (process files in parallel and receive notifications when they are available) and Streaming API (real-time inference on continuous data streams). Hume AI also offers a Python software development kit (SDK) for the platform. As of December 2023, Hume AI is in Beta, and users can sign up to access the platform.
Hume AI models integrate language and expression to understand user preferences, capturing:
- Speech prosody—over 25 patterns of tune, rhythm, and timbre behind everyday speech
- Vocal expression—28 kinds of vocal expression and meaning, as well as the ways they are blended together
- Facial expression—37 kinds of facial movement that are recognized as conveying meanings, as well as the ways they are blended together
Hume AI can be integrated into applications and research studies that involve human data, including audio, video, images, and text. The company's API measures over fifty dimensions of emotional expression in nuanced facial and vocal behavior. With the API, developers can build custom models, deploy and share models, and analyze data without writing code. Examples of custom models include predicting the risk of Parkinson's, identifying toxic speech by online gamers, and classifying the quality of customer support calls.
Headquartered in New York City, Hume AI was publicly launched in January 2021. The company was founded by CEO Alan Cowen, who was previously a researcher at Google AI and the University of California, Berkeley in the Social Interaction Lab. In September 2022, the company opened a beta version of its technology to a waiting list of over two thousand companies and research organizations. Hume AI has research partnerships with Mt. Sinai, Boston University Medical Center, and Harvard Medical School, examining patients’ vocal and facial expressions to improve healthcare outcomes for patients. Hume AI's use cases include standardized patient screening and triaging, more targeted diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions, and patient monitoring and crisis prediction.
In October 2022, Northwell Holdings (the investment arm of New York-based health system Northwell Health) announced it had invested $3 million in Hume AI. On February 16, 2023, the company announced a $12.7 million series A round led by Union Square Ventures with participation from Northwell Holdings, Comcast Ventures, LG Technology Ventures, Wisdom Ventures, and Evan Sharp (Pinterest co-founder). This brought the total raised by the company to over $17 million. The company's custom model API was announced on December 14, 2023.