Block's new AI model Dessa was trained entirely on human speech to catch emotions text-based models miss

Block, the company behind Square and Cash App, has introduced Dessa, a speech model that processes audio directly instead of converting it to text first. Dessa is designed to recognize emotions, sarcasm, and pauses in real time. The model runs locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max but isn't publicly…

Block, the company behind Square and Cash App, has introduced Dessa, a speech model that processes audio directly instead of converting it to text first. Dessa is designed to recognize emotions, sarcasm, and pauses in real time. The model runs locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max but isn't publicly available yet. The article Block's new AI model Dessa was trained entirely on human speech to catch emotions text-based models miss appeared first on The Decoder.

Source: The Decoder — Published October 24, 2026 at 14:09 UTC — Category: Models