Integrated or Open Stack? How to Architect Voice AI That Scales
Voice is quickly becoming one of the most important channels enterprises are investing in. The reason is straightforward: few technologies can deliver meaningful ROI as quickly, both in terms of internal operational efficiency and external customer experience.
Every spoken word in a voice AI interaction travels through three distinct technical layers: speech recognition, language understanding, and speech synthesis. Each one shapes the experience differently and comes with its own failure modes. And each one is advancing on its own timeline.
That means when scaling production voice agents, your model choices matter more than ever. The catch is that the best option at each layer today may not be the best option in six months. The model landscape for voice AI has turned over multiple times in the last two years alone, and the pace isn't slowing. Teams that locked their stack in early are finding themselves stuck. The ones setting themselves up for success are built to stay open, adaptable, and able to pivot quickly.
In this session, Vapi and Cartesia will make the case for building voice infrastructure the way good software has always been built: with clear separation of concerns, best-in-class components at each layer, and the freedom to upgrade any one of them without migrating your entire stack.
What we'll cover:
Fully packaged vs. open and modular: the real trade-offs — fewer integrations and simplified vendor relationships versus the flexibility to swap components as the model landscape evolves
Do different models perform better for different use-cases? - How the right model at each layer changes depending on use case, audience, and acoustic environment
Practical questions to ask any voice AI provider — how to evaluate for flexibility before switching costs become your problem
Independently upgradeable, in the real world — how production teams are actually structuring their voice stacks
Who should attend: AI engineers, product leaders, and enterprise architects building or scaling voice AI. CX leaders and operations executives evaluating voice AI for customer-facing or internal workflows.
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