sesame.com

What sesame.com Is

sesame.com is the official website for a company called Sesame (often referred to as Sesame AI), a technology startup building next-generation conversational voice AI systems. The homepage presents the company’s mission to make computers more lifelike — ones that can hear, speak, and collaborate with people using natural voice interactions.

This site serves as the hub for their research demos, team information, mission statement, and links to careers and privacy/terms documentation.

Who Sesame Is — The Company Behind sesame.com

Sesame is a private AI technology company focused on developing conversational voice agents that behave more like natural conversational partners than traditional assistants like Siri or Alexa.

Founders and Team

The company was co-founded by:

• Brendan Iribe, former CEO/co-founder of Oculus VR
• Ankit Kumar, former CTO of Ubiquity6
• Ryan Brown, former Meta Reality Labs engineer

They bring expertise in AI, machine learning, hardware, consumer tech, and gaming/VR.

Sesame also lists additional team members in engineering, product, and research roles across multiple offices (San Francisco, Bellevue, New York).

Backing and Funding

The startup has attracted serious venture capital support. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, and Matrix Partners.

There are reports of Series A and Series B funding rounds amounting to tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars — a sign that investors see potential in Sesame’s strategy to reinvent voice AI.

What Sesame Does — Technology and Products

sesame.com doesn’t sell a traditional product you can download or buy yet. Instead, the site highlights their ongoing research and development work. Two core pieces stand out:

Conversational Voice AI

Sesame’s focus is voice as the primary human-computer interface — not typing, not touchscreens, but natural speech. This goes beyond conventional voice assistants.

Their technology is built around a proprietary model called the Conversational Speech Model (CSM), which:

• takes text and audio input together,
• generates speech in real time,
• and aims to deliver natural, expressive, and emotionally responsive voice interactions.

That’s different from typical speech-to-text + text-to-speech pipelines. Sesame’s approach aims for low latency (200–300 ms response times) and conversational flow that feels natural.

Voice Companions — Maya and Miles

On the site and in demos, Sesame highlights two voice AI personas:

• Maya — a female-voiced AI companion,
• Miles — a male-voiced AI companion.

These are prototypes of the kind of natural speech agents Sesame is developing. They’re designed to have emotional intelligence — reacting to tone, pausing naturally, and sounding less robotic than traditional assistants.

Smart Glasses & Hardware

Beyond software, Sesame is working on lightweight wearable devices (smart glasses) that integrate voice AI as an always-on companion. The idea is glasses you wear all day that let you interact with your digital assistant seamlessly through natural conversation.

This is still in development and not a commercial product yet, but it’s part of their vision for a voice-first computing future.

Why It Matters

Voice assistants today — like Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant — can handle simple commands well but struggle with deep conversational context, emotional nuance, or extended back-and-forth dialogue. Sesame positions itself as tackling those exact limitations with:

• expressive speech models
• fast responses
• emotional intelligence
• context awareness
• natural conversational flow

Investors and early users have highlighted that interacting with Sesame demos feels more human and less mechanical compared with other systems — a potential step beyond existing voice technologies.

How You Can Interact With It Today

At the moment, sesame.com doesn’t sell a finished application. Instead:

• You can try research demos (like speaking with Maya or Miles).
• You can join the beta waitlist for early testing of their iOS app version.

This implies Sesame is still in pre-commercial phase, gathering feedback and refining tech before a broader consumer launch.

Privacy and Terms

Like most tech companies, Sesame has posted a Privacy Policy and Terms of Use on sesame.com. These documents explain how data like voice recordings, user identifiers, and other personal information may be handled when interacting with Sesame services.

Their terms also clarify that any AI responses generated might not always be accurate and emphasize that using the service means agreeing to arbitration for disputes.

How to Read sesame.com Information Critically

A few points to keep in mind:

• Not a fully launched consumer product yet — their offerings are primarily research previews and limited beta experiences.
• Expect ongoing development — voice AI is still evolving and commercial deployment at scale is complex.
• Open-source components exist in parts of their technology, especially earlier CSM models, which means developers and researchers can experiment with some aspects of their system outside sesame.com.

Key Takeaways

• sesame.com is the official site for Sesame AI, a company building advanced voice-first AI technology.
• The company’s mission is to make computers that can hear, speak, and interact naturally with humans.
• They develop expressive conversational agents that feel more natural than typical voice assistants.
• Core tech includes the Conversational Speech Model (CSM) and voice companions like Maya and Miles.
• Sesame has strong VC backing and experienced founders from Oculus and other tech companies.
• You can currently try demos or join beta tests, but there isn’t a broad commercial product yet.

FAQ

Is sesame.com a consumer product now?
Not exactly. It’s primarily a research and brand site for Sesame’s voice AI tech, with early demos and a beta sign-up.

Who founded Sesame?
Brendan Iribe (ex-Oculus), Ankit Kumar (ex-Ubiquity6), and Ryan Brown, among others.

What makes their voice AI different?
Their models aim for natural conversational flow, expressive speech, and emotional responsiveness, unlike rigid turn-based assistants.

Can I talk to Maya or Miles now?
Yes — the site provides research demos, and you can try them.

Will Sesame have hardware?
They’re developing voice-AI smart glasses to provide always-on interaction, though these aren’t commercially available yet.