SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 3, 2025--
Hanabi AI, a pioneering voice technology startup, today announced OpenAudio S1, the world’s first AI voice actor and a breakthrough generative voice model that delivers unprecedented real-time emotional and tonal control. Moving beyond the limitations of traditional text-to-speech solutions, OpenAudio S1 creates nuanced, emotionally authentic vocal output that captures the full spectrum of human expression. The OpenAudio S1 model is available in open beta today on fish.audio, for everyone to try for free.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250603787428/en/
“We believe the future of AI voice-driven storytelling isn’t just about generating speech—it’s about performance,” said Shijia Liao, founder and CEO of Hanabi AI. “With OpenAudio S1, we’re shaping what we see as the next creative frontier: AI voice acting.”
From Synthesized Text-to-Speech Output to AI Voice Performance
At the heart of OpenAudio S1’s innovation is transforming voice from merely a functional tool into a core element of storytelling. Rather than treating speech as a scripted output to synthesize, Hanabi AI views it as a performance to direct—complete with emotional depth, intentional pacing, and expressive nuance. Whether it’s the trembling hesitation of suppressed anxiety before delivering difficult news, or the fragile excitement of an unexpected reunion, OpenAudio S1 allows users to control and fine tune vocal intensity, emotional resonance, and prosody in real time making voice output not just sound realistic, but feel authentically human.
“Voice is one of the most powerful ways to convey emotion, yet it’s the most nuanced, the hardest to replicate, and the key to making machines feel truly human,” Liao emphasized, “But it's been stuck in a text-to-speech mindset for too long. Ultimately, the difference between machine-generated speech and human speech comes down to emotional authenticity. It’s not just what you say but how you say it. OpenAudio S1 is the first AI speech model that gives creators the power to direct voice acting as if they were working with a real human actor.”
State-of-the-Art Model Meets Controllability and Speed
Hanabi AI fuels creative vision with a robust technical foundation. OpenAudio S1 is powered by an end-to-end architecture with 4 billion parameters, trained extensively on diverse text and audio datasets. This advanced setup empowers S1 to capture emotional nuance and vocal subtleties with remarkable accuracy. Fully integrated into the fish.audio platform, S1 is accessible to a broad range of users—from creators generating long-form content in minutes to creative professionals fine-tuning every vocal inflection.
According to third-party benchmarks from Hugging Face’s TTS Arena, OpenAudio S1 demonstrated consistent gains across key benchmarks, outperforming ElevenLabs, OpenAI, and Cartesia in key areas:
Pioneering Research Vision For the Future
OpenAudio S1 is just the first chapter. Hanabi’s long-term mission is to build a true AI companion that doesn’t just process information but connects with human emotion, intent, and presence. While many voice models today produce clear speech they still fall short of true emotional depth, and struggle to support the kind of trust, warmth, and natural interaction required of an AI companion. Instead of treating voice as an output layer, Hanabi treats it as the emotional core of the AI experience, because for an AI companion to feel natural, its voice must convey real feeling and connection.
To bring this vision to life, Hanabi advances both research and product in parallel. The company operates through two complementary divisions: OpenAudio, Hanabi's internal research lab, focuses on developing breakthrough voice models and advancing emotional nuance, real-time control, and speech fidelity. Meanwhile, Fish Audio serves as Hanabi's product arm, delivering a portfolio of accessible applications that bring these technological advancements directly to consumers.
Looking ahead, the company plans to progressively release core parts of OpenAudio’s architecture, training pipeline, and inference stack to the public.
Real-World Impact with Scalable Innovation
With a four-people Gen Z founding team, the company scaled its annualized revenue from $400,000 to over $5 million between January and April 2025, while growing its MAU from 50,000 to 420,000 through Fish Audio’s early products—including real-time performance tools and long-form audio generation. This traction reflects the team’s ability to turn cutting-edge innovation into product experiences that resonate with a fast-growing creative community.
The founder & CEO, Shijia Liao, has spent over seven years in the field and been active in open-source AI development. Prior to Fish Audio, he led or participated in the development of several widely adopted speech and singing voice synthesis models—including So-VITS-SVC, GPT-SoVITS, Bert-VITS2, and Fish Speech—which remain influential in the research and creative coding communities today. That open-source foundation built both the technical core and the community trust that now powers fish.audio’s early commercial momentum.
For a deeper dive into the research and philosophy behind OpenAudio S1, check out our launch blog post here: https://openaudio.com/blogs/s1
Pricing & Availability
Premium Membership (unlimited generation on Fish Audio Playground):
- $15 per month
- $120 per year
API: $15 per million UTF-8 bytes (approximately 20 hours of audio)
About Hanabi AI
Hanabi AI Inc. is pioneering the era of the AI Voice Actor —speech that you can direct as easily as video, shaping every inflection, pause, and emotion in real time. Built on our open-source roots, the Fish Audio platform gives filmmakers, streamers, and everyday creators frame-perfect control over how their stories sound.
Hanabi AI Launches OpenAudio S1: The World’s First AI Voice Actor for Real-Time Emotional Control
Hanabi AI Launches OpenAudio S1: The World’s First AI Voice Actor for Real-Time Emotional Control
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A person of interest detained after a Brown University shooting that killed two students and injured nine will be released after an investigation took law enforcement authorities in a “different direction,” officials said Sunday night.
The disclosure, made at a hastily convened late night news conference, represents a stunning turn of events in an investigation into killings that rattled the Ivy League campus and came more than 12 hours after officials had announced that they had taken a person into custody in connection with the attack.
The release means that whoever is responsible for the killing may remain at large.
“We know that this is likely to cause fresh anxiety for our community,” Mayor Brett Smiley said.
The attack Saturday afternoon set off hours of chaos across campus and surrounding Providence neighborhoods as hundreds of officers searched for the shooter and urged students and staff to shelter in place. The lockdown, which stretched into the night, was lifted early Sunday, but authorities had not yet released information about a potential motive.
On Sunday morning, officials took a person into custody that two people familiar with the matter identified as a 24-year-old man from Wisconsin. That individual, whose name was never released by authorities, is now being released.
"I’ve been around long enough to know that sometimes you head in one direction and then you have to regroup and go in another and that’s exactly what has happened over the last 24 hours or so,” said Attorney General Peter Neronha.
Col. Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief, said Sunday afternoon that no one has been charged yet. Perez, who also said no one else was being sought, declined to say whether the detained person had any connection to Brown.
The person was taken into custody at a Hampton Inn hotel in Coventry, Rhode Island, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Providence, where police officers and FBI agents remained Sunday, blocking off a hallway with crime scene tape as they searched the area.
The shooting occurred during one of the busiest moments of the academic calendar, as final exams were underway. Brown canceled all remaining classes, exams, papers and projects for the semester and told students they could leave campus, underscoring the scale of the disruption and the gravity of the attack.
As police scoured the area for the shooter, many students remained barricaded in rooms while others hid behind furniture and bookshelves. One video showed students in a library shaking and wincing as they heard loud bangs just before police entered the room to clear the building.
University President Christina Paxson teared up while describing her conversations with students both on campus and in the hospital.
“They are amazing and they’re supporting each other,” she said at a news conference. “There’s just a lot of gratitude.”
The gunman opened fire inside a classroom in the engineering building, firing more than 40 rounds from a 9 mm handgun, a law enforcement official told AP. Two handguns were recovered when the person of interest was taken into custody and authorities also found two loaded 30-round magazines, the official said. One of the firearms was equipped with a laser sight that projects a dot to aid in targeting, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity.
One student of the nine wounded students had been released from the hospital, said Paxson. Seven others were in critical but stable condition, and one was in critical condition.
Durham Academy, a private K-12 school in Durham, North Carolina, confirmed that a recent graduate, Kendall Turner, was critically wounded. The school said her parents were with her.
“Our school community is rallying around Kendall, her classmates, and her loved ones, and we will continue to offer our full support in the days ahead,” the school said.
On Sunday evening, city leaders, residents and others gathered at a park to honor the victims. The event originally was scheduled as a Christmas tree and Hanukkah menorah lighting.
“For those who know at least bit of the Hanukkah story, it is quite clear that if we can come together as a community to shine a little bit of light tonight, there’s nothing better that we can be doing,” Mayor Brett Smiley said at a news conference earlier in the day.
Smiley said he visited some wounded students and was inspired by their courage, hope and gratitude. One told him that active shooting drills done in high school proved helpful.
“The resilience that these survivors showed and shared with me, is frankly pretty overwhelming,” he said.
Investigators were not immediately sure how the shooter got inside the first-floor classroom at the Barus & Holley building, a seven-story complex that houses the School of Engineering and physics department. The building includes more than 100 laboratories, dozens of classrooms and offices, according to the university’s website.
Engineering design exams were underway. Outer doors of the building were unlocked but rooms being used for final exams required badge access, Smiley said.
Emma Ferraro, a chemical engineering student, was in the lobby working on a final project when she heard loud pops. Once she realized they were gunshots, she darted for the door and into a nearby building where she waited for hours.
Surveillance video released by police showed a suspect, dressed in black, walking from the scene.
Eva Erickson, a doctoral candidate who was the runner-up earlier this year on the CBS reality competition show “Survivor,” said she left her lab in the engineering building 15 minutes before shots rang out.
The engineering and thermal science student shared candid moments on “Survivor” as the show’s first openly autistic contestant. She was locked down in the campus gym following the shooting and shared on social media that the only other member of her lab who was present was safely evacuated.
Brown senior biochemistry student Alex Bruce was working on a final research project in his dorm across the street from the building when he heard sirens outside.
“I’m just in here shaking,” he said, watching through the window as officers surrounded his dorm.
Brown, the seventh-oldest higher education institution in the U.S., is one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges, with roughly 7,300 undergraduates and more than 3,000 graduate students.
Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Contributing were Associated Press journalists Jennifer McDermott in Providence; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and Alanna Durkin Richer, Mike Balsamo and Eric Tucker in Washington, D.C.
Passers-by walk past crime scene tape at an entrance to Brown University, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., following the Saturday, Dec. 13, shooting at the university. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
A bouquet of flowers rests on snow, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, on the campus of Brown University not far from where a shooting took place, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
A pedestrian walks across the intersection of Waterman St. and Hope St. Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, after a shooting on Saturday in Providence, R.I. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)
Pedestrians walk past and glance at the scene of a shooting at Brown University Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, after a shooting on Saturday in Providence, R.I. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)
Police caution tape lays askew at Brown University's Ittleson Quad Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, after a shooting on Saturday in Providence, R.I. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)
Police tape off hotel rooms where the person of interest was arrested in a shooting in Coventry, RI., (AP Photo/Kimberlee Kruesi)
Police tape off hotel rooms where the person of interest was arrested in a shooting in Coventry, RI., (AP Photo/Kimberlee Kruesi)
A police officer hangs yellow crime tape at Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)
Emergency personnel gather on Waterman Street at Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)
Police vehicles rest in intersections in a neighborhood near Brown University, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., following a shooting at the university Saturday, Dec. 13. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
A police vehicle rests at an intersection near crime scene tape at Brown University, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., following a Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025 shooting at the university. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Mayor Brett Smiley speaks to reporters during a Brown University news conference, in Providence, R. I., Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Kimberlee Kruesi)
Law enforcement officials carry rifles while walking on a street in a neighborhood near Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025 during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Brown University President Christina H. Paxson attends a news conference addressing the investigation following a shooting on Brown University's campus Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)
Students are escorted by law enforcement officers to a building at Brown University after a shooting, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Providence, R.I.. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Law enforcement officials carrying weapons gather near Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
A law enforcement official walks past articles of clothing on a sidewalk near an entrance to Brown University, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Providence, R.I., during the investigation of a shooting. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
