LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 23, 2026--
Guava today released Daytona, its new voice model, and published the Guava Voice Index, an open scoring framework for voice agent quality. Guava published Daytona's results alongside the results of three other leading voice AI systems and of live human agents handling the same calls.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260923955912/en/
“Every voice AI company will tell you their agent sounds human. Almost none of them will tell you whether it actually finished the call,” said Omri Dahan, CEO and co-founder of Guava. “We built the index we wanted to exist as buyers, and then we published our own scores on it, including the ones we need to improve.”
The Guava Voice Index scores voice agents from 0 to 100 across five pillars: responsiveness, conversational flow, fidelity, resolution and TTS quality. Content accuracy carries 60 percent of the weight and voice experience 40 percent. The automated layer draws on components of EVA-Bench (1), the voice agent evaluation suite published by ServiceNow, and word error rate measured on Coval's Voice AI Benchmark (2). The human layer is a blind pairwise test run with an external evaluator panel, with a minimum of ten evaluators per pair. Every system is compared against live human agents handling the same calls, through both audio listening tests and transcript reviews. Guava published the full methodology, the pillar weights and the validation gates at goguava.ai/gvi so the scoring can be examined.
Guava co-founder and Head of Engineering Anthony Scodary put it this way: "Most voice benchmarks are very narrow, for speech-to-text, text-to-speech, or very short toy conversations. The GVI is real conversations with a mix of machine and human evaluators. We believe it's the new gold standard."
The four systems tested in September 2026 were Guava Daytona, ElevenLabs paired with GPT 5.4, Grok, and ElevenLabs paired with Haiku 4.5.
Daytona scored highest at 58.88 out of 100, ahead of ElevenLabs with GPT 5.4 at 57.11, Grok at 53.60, and ElevenLabs with Haiku 4.5 at 51.06. No system scored above 60. Daytona led on fidelity and on human-evaluated speech quality and response time. It did not lead everywhere: ElevenLabs with GPT 5.4 scored higher on resolution, 79 percent of available points against Daytona's 67. Both results are published.
Every system was also measured against live human agents handling the same calls. Evaluators preferred the human agent in 91 percent of comparisons on response timing and 93 percent on interruption recovery, across all four systems tested including Daytona.
Guava builds and operates every model in the stack itself, from speech recognition through to speech synthesis. Guava's models are trained on more than 10 billion minutes of live agent conversation across 100+ production deployments since 2013. The company is SOC 2 Type II Certified, HITRUST i1 Certified, and PCI DSS Level 1 Compliant, with BAAs available for healthcare deployments.
Daytona is available to Guava customers today. The Guava Voice Index and the full leaderboard are published at goguava.ai/gvi and will be updated as new systems are tested.
About Guava
Guava is where your expertise finds its voice. One stack spanning speech recognition, language, speech synthesis, dialog control, compliance, and supervision, with 100+ deployments since 2013 and customers live within 14 days of kickoff. SOC 2 Type II, HITRUST i1, PCI DSS Level 1. Learn more at goguava.ai.
References
Guava Voice Index v1.0 composite scores, September 2026.Guava Daytona 58.88, ElevenLabs with GPT 5.4 57.11, Grok 53.60, ElevenLabs with Claude Haiku 4.5 51.06.
MADRID (AP) — Joe Burrow threw for three touchdowns and rushed for another and the Cincinnati Bengals' offense kept rolling to defeat the Atlanta Falcons 34-17 in Madrid on Sunday for their fourth straight win.
Ja’Marr Chase had eight receptions for 142 yards in the first half, and Tee Higgins added two touchdown catches at Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. Chase finished with 10 catches for 155 yards and a touchdown.
After his 47-yard touchdown catch in the first quarter, Chase celebrated with Higgins in bullfighting style, with Higgins mimicking a bull by putting his hands on his head and Chase playing the matador with an imaginary cape.
Burrow appeared to celebrate one of the touchdowns by imitating a celebration by Brazil soccer great Neymar, who used to play for Barcelona, holding his hands beside his helmet and wiggling his fingers.
The Bengals (6-2) have scored 30 points or more in four straight games for the first time since 1997. It was the second consecutive defeat for the Falcons (3-6).
Burrow, who completed 24 of 29 passes for 271 yards Sunday, had thrown five touchdown passes and rushed for another in overtime in the team’s 43-36 win over the Tennessee Titans last week.
“Joe’s playing at an unbelievably high level right now,” Bengals coach Zac Taylor said. “It’s difficult to not put the ball on his hands, given how everybody’s playing around him as well. So we just gotta keep this momentum going.”
The Bengals failed to convert on third down only once in the first half and didn’t punt until their first drive in the second half.
The Bengals scored on every possession before halftime, with three touchdowns and a field goal in the final seconds of the half.
Playing under the closed roof of the Bernabeu, Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr. played better than in the rain in a 16-0 loss to the Buccaneers in Tampa Bay last week, but threw a late interception to go along with his opening-drive touchdown to tight end Charlie Woerner. Penix was 20 of 31 for 162 yards with a touchdown and interception and added 50 yards rushing.
Running back Bijan Robinson had 42 yards on three carries on the Falcons' first drive. He ended with 100 yards rushing and a touchdown on 19 carries and 47 yards receiving on six receptions.
“We were not good enough, we have to do better,” Falcons coach Kevin Stefanski said. “We just were not at our best. And if you’re not at your best versus a good team, you’re not going to win.”
It was the second NFL regular-season game in Madrid after the Miami Dolphins beat the Washington Commanders 16-13 in overtime in last year’s inaugural game in the country. It was the seventh game in a record nine-game schedule outside the U.S. for the NFL this season. The remaining games will be played in Munich, Germany, and Mexico City.
A crowd of 78,660 people was on hand on Sunday in the Spanish capital. Bengals fans appeared to outnumber Falcons supporters.
The lights at the Bernabeu suddenly went out just as the Bengals were taking a snap inside the final two minutes, prompting the down to be replayed.
Early in the game, some Bengals defensive players appeared to change into longer spikes after the first drive to adjust to the grass at the Bernabeu.
Falcons edge rusher James Pearce Jr. returned from an eight-game suspension for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy but had limited play. He spent time in the blue medical tent early in the second half. Pearce had a back issue in Friday’s practice and had been listed as questionable ahead of the game.
Before kickoff, a moment of silence was held in tribute to the victims of the high-speed train crash that killed 69 people in central Spain on Oct. 28, including four Americans.
Spain’s World Cup trophies for both the women’s and men’s soccer teams were displayed on the field, with national team players on hand as well.
Former Real Madrid and Brazil soccer great Roberto Carlos sounded the train horn in the Falcons' traditional pregame celebration. The halftime show featured Colombian music star Manuel Turizo.
Bengals: host Steelers on “Sunday Night Football” on Nov. 15.
Falcons: host Kansas City on Sunday.
See AP’s full NFL coverage here
Atlanta Falcons tight end Charlie Woerner (89) celebrates after scoring a touchdown during an NFL football game in Madrid, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Cincinnati Bengals tight end Mike Gesicki (88) goes airborne after a challenge from Atlanta Falcons cornerback Mike Hughes (21) during an NFL football game in Madrid, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja'marr Chase (1) celebrates after scoring a touchdown during an NFL football game against Atlanta Falcons in Madrid, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) celebrates scoring a touchdown during an NFL football game against Atlanta Falcons in Madrid, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) passes the ball during an NFL football game against Atlanta Falcons in Madrid, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
