OpenAI AI agents, transcription model

[rlg]

Hi,

From v20u9 to v20u10, you changed the transcription model used in AI agents from Whisper to gpt-realtime-whisper.

Moving cost from $0.006 /minute to $0.017 /minute :
https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing#audio-tokens

Which can have an impact with high-volume installations.

Does gpt-realtime-whisper really improves over Whipser ?
Whisper seems to already give really good results in terms of transcription for AI agents.

Could it perhaps be possible to have a dropdown in Realtime API Configuration panel to choose the Transcription model, as we already do for the Realtime and Text ones ?

Thank you very much !

 

[KyriacosS_3CX]

Hello,

OpenAI based AI Agents use gpt-realtime in U9 too. (Hosted) whisper is for "offline" transcription, not AI agents that respond live, hence the "realtime" model. Between u9 and u10, for AI agents, the change is the gpt-realtime versions that are available to choose from, inline with OpenAI model releases and retirements.

 

[rlg]

Hello @KyriacosS_3CX,

Thank you very much for your reply.

Well, look at the OpenAI interface below, for an API key only used by a v20u9 AI Receptionist.
And then especially the use of whispter-1 model.

Hence my question.

Thank you again !

Usage > Responses and Chat Completions :



Usage > Audio Transcriptions :

 

[rlg]

On the contrary, with v20u10 :

Usage > Audio Transcriptions :



Hence my primary assumption.

Thank you again !

 

[rlg]

I confirm my first assumption is good, based on cost calculation from the OpenAI usage portal.
v20u9 uses Whisper as the transcription model for AI agents.
While v20u10 uses gpt-realtime-whisper.
Moving cost from $0.006 /minute to $0.017 /minute.
Which will have a huge impact.

 

[nikolascx]

Hi @rlg,

Yes, you are correct – thank you for highlighting this.

We changed the transcription model to address quality issues with our AI Agents. Whisper worked well for transcribing completed recordings, but it was not the best fit for our live transcription requirements.

After investigating these issues with OpenAI, they recommended moving to gpt-realtime-whisper, a streaming speech-to-text model designed to provide low-latency, incremental transcripts from live audio. We saw a significant improvement after making that change.

You are also correct about the increased transcription cost. We made this change to improve quality, but we recognise its impact on high-volume installations.

In Update 11, we plan to move to gpt-live-transcribe, OpenAI’s recommended model for new realtime transcription integrations. It costs the same as gpt-realtime-whisper: $0.017 per minute of audio. We are also doing these changes because we need to support additional features we are working on.. More on this later on.

We are also testing different model combinations to assess overall call costs. In our current tests, using the latest recommended combinations, a five-minute AI Agent call costs approximately $0.40 in total, including transcription. This is an indicative result; actual costs vary with the models selected and the conversation.

Please let me know if you have additional questions and at your disposal for anything you need.

Thanks so much and God bless

 

[rlg]

Hi @nikolascx,

Thank you very much for your very detailed reply, really appreciated !

That makes sense.
I agree that these AI Agents should first focus on quality, with the risk otherwise to put callers off...
Then we'll analyze costs with customers.

Grok / grok-voice-3.0 may help here in terms of costs, but still if quality is at the expected level.

Thank you again !