Introducing Bulbul V3
Sarvam, a notable Indian AI startup, has introduced its latest text-to-speech artificial intelligence model, named Bulbul V3. This new iteration represents
a significant advancement, focusing on delivering highly natural-sounding speech across diverse Indian linguistic landscapes, encompassing various regional scripts and accents. The model boasts an impressive library of over 35 distinct, high-quality voices, each carefully curated from professional voice artists. Currently, Bulbul V3 offers robust support for more than 11 Indian languages, with an ambitious roadmap to extend its linguistic capabilities to all 22 officially scheduled Indian languages in the very near future. This expansion signifies a deep commitment to inclusivity and broad accessibility in AI-driven communication solutions for the Indian market.
Advanced Natural Speech
At its core, Bulbul V3 operates on a sophisticated large language model (LLM) architecture. This advanced LLM is adept at meticulously analyzing input text, translating it into AI-generated speech that mimics human vocalization with remarkable fidelity. The model excels in incorporating prosodic elements, such as strategic pauses, nuanced emphasis, adaptive pacing, and subtle tone modulation. These features collectively contribute to an output that sounds exceptionally natural and engaging. Furthermore, Bulbul V3 includes a low-latency streaming output mode, enabling users to generate and playback audio in near real-time. This capability is particularly crucial for applications demanding immediate responsiveness, like dynamic conversational interfaces and interactive user experiences, where instant feedback directly impacts user engagement and satisfaction.
Handling Indian Complexity
The creation of effective voice AI for India presents unique challenges due to the inherent complexity of Indian speech patterns. Individuals frequently switch between languages within a single sentence, and pronunciation can vary significantly based on geographic region. Moreover, the correct articulation of names, abbreviations, and the conveyance of emotions are as vital as the words themselves. Sarvam's Bulbul V3 has been engineered to navigate this intricate linguistic terrain effectively. The model is designed to handle these diverse linguistic characteristics without compromising the quality or intelligibility of the generated speech, ensuring a robust and reliable performance across the varied spectrum of Indian vocal expression.
Voice Cloning Innovations
Beyond its core speech generation capabilities, Bulbul V3 introduces an innovative voice cloning feature. This allows users to create custom AI-generated voices, mirroring existing vocal profiles. Sarvam emphasizes that this voice cloning functionality is built on a consent-based framework, incorporating robust safeguards to ensure ethical usage. It is specifically designed to cater to high-volume enterprise applications, offering businesses the ability to develop personalized audio experiences or maintain brand consistency through unique voice identities. This feature marks a significant step towards more tailored and professional audio solutions within the AI landscape.
Launch and Rollout Strategy
The introduction of Bulbul V3 is part of a broader, ambitious 14-day rollout initiative by Sarvam, featuring a new AI tool release each day. This intensive launch period is strategically timed in anticipation of the India-AI Impact Summit 2026, scheduled to take place in New Delhi. Sarvam is also playing a pivotal role in the nation's AI development by being one of twelve selected entities tasked by the Indian government to develop sovereign Large Language Models (LLMs). This national endeavor, part of the Rs 10,300-crore India AI Mission, aims to foster indigenous AI capabilities. The indigenously developed AI models are slated for unveiling at the summit, which will run from February 16 to February 20, 2026.
Access and Developer Perks
For individuals and developers eager to explore the capabilities of Bulbul V3, access is readily available through the Sarvam Dashboard. In a move to encourage adoption and experimentation within the developer community, Sarvam is offering unlimited API access to this new AI voice-generation model. This special promotional period extends until February 28, 2026, providing ample time for developers to integrate and test the advanced features of Bulbul V3 into their projects and applications, fostering innovation in voice-based AI solutions.
Performance Benchmarks
Sarvam conducted rigorous testing for Bulbul V3, including an independent, blind A/B human listening study across 11 languages. This comparative evaluation pitted Bulbul V3 against competitor speech models using identical text inputs. While a specific model topped the audio quality list, Bulbul V3 demonstrated superior performance against other rival models in general (full-band) evaluations. Crucially, its performance in 8 kHz (telephony) evaluations surpassed all other tested models. Furthermore, Bulbul V3 exhibited the lowest rates of word skips and mispronunciations, while maintaining comparable results in handling extra-content errors, underscoring its accuracy and reliability.
Other Recent AI Releases
Sarvam's recent AI product releases showcase a diverse range of capabilities beyond voice generation. Sarvam Vision, a 3 billion-parameter vision-language model, is designed for complex visual understanding tasks such as image captioning, recognizing text within scenes, interpreting charts, and parsing intricate tables. Sarvam Samvaad offers conversational AI agents that can be integrated with enterprise tools, enabling data-driven actions and insights from proprietary information. Sarvam Audio extends the capabilities of their 3 billion-parameter language model, Sarvam 3B, by adding audio processing functionalities for English and 22 Indian languages. Lastly, Sarvam Dub is an AI dubbing model featuring zero-shot voice cloning and precise timing control, powered by cross-lingual speech models, enabling creators to dub content like podcasts and educational courses into multiple Indian languages.
