Language Model

EVI supports specifying a language model for response generation during chat sessions. The language model you choose plays an important role in the sort of responses that are generated by EVI.

While EVI supports several native speech-language models which are optimized for emotional intelligence and conversational use cases, the use of supplemental language models is also supported.

Supported language models

Hume’s speech-language model

Hume offers native speech-language models. These models are multi-modal, capable of processing both language and audio together. This allows EVI to understand and generate both language and voice in the same latent space, resulting in more coherent and contextually aware responses.

Hume speech-language model support by EVI version:

External LLMs

Developers may also choose from leading external language models such as Claude, GPT, Gemini, and many others. For a complete list of external LLMs Hume natively supports, see our API Reference.

Latency

The landscape of large language models (LLMs) and their providers is constantly evolving, affecting which supplemental LLM is fastest with EVI.

The key factor influencing perceived latency using EVI is the time to first token (TTFT), with lower TTFT being better. The model and provider combination with the smallest TTFT will be the fastest.

Notably, there’s a tradeoff between speed and quality. Larger, slower models are easier to prompt. We recommend testing various supplemental LLM options when implementing EVI.

Custom language model

For specific application requirements, the API supports integrating custom language models, offering flexibility to tailor conversational behavior to your domain.

Pricing

Using an external language model incurs additional cost. You can view estimated pricing by model on the Billing page when you are logged in to the Hume Platform. The cost of your external language model usage will be added to your monthly bill.