Sesame, a conversational AI startup co-founded by Oculus founders, has made headlines by raising $250 million in a Series B funding round. The startup made waves in February after coming out of stealth mode. This week, it boasted some very good news — the beta launch of its new smart glass technology, known as Sesame! These smart glasses are the perfect intersection of style and future-forward AI technology. Users will want to wear them because of their sleek, modern design—even outside the context of artificial intelligence.
The stylish Sesame smart glasses are meant to capture the hearts of a style-conscious audience. They are not just functional devices but a signal of the owner’s values and commitment to fashion-forward aesthetics. Pioneered by companies like Snapchat and Facebook, this strategy turns the glasses into an irresistible status symbol. It brings to end-user the most advanced conversational AI capabilities available.
During its original debut, Sesame showed off some fantastic demo footage of its technology with AI voices “Maya” and “Miles.” In less than three weeks, these voices helped attract over one million users. As a group, they participated in more than five million minutes of dialogue. This kind of rapid adoption is a sure sign of the growing interest in conversational AI solutions.
Sesame’s technology has been a breakthrough in making generative AI feel more human and friendly. In contrast to legacy systems that just turn language model outputs into speech, Sesame’s platform creates speech from scratch. This flexibility empowers it to record the cadence and passion of authentic speech. In turn, this affords a much more fluid experience for users.
“It doesn’t just translate LLM output into audio—it generates speech directly, capturing the rhythm, emotion, and expressiveness of real dialogue.” – Sequoia
Investors have agreed with Sesame’s promise, with the Series B round bringing in big players like Sequoia and Spark. The firm is poising for the launch of its beta software to a limited number of testers. Early reviews of its technology have been, quite literally, off the charts in their enthusiasm. Users have described the tech demo as “genuinely fun” and “natural-sounding,” suggesting that Sesame’s innovations could redefine user expectations for conversational AI.
Brendan Iribe, co-founder of Sesame, couldn’t be more excited about the company’s new course. He is convinced its products have tremendous potential to make a positive impact. Sesame is still in the midst of iterating its technology and honing its product. This makes the company a central player at the interesting intersection of fashionable wearables and big data.