Accent and Dialect Bias
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
ASR Performs Significantly Worse on Non-Standard Accents
Voice AI
Voice AI failures — speech recognition, synthesis, and conversational-audio breakdowns
66 patterns
Voice AI failures — speech recognition, synthesis, and conversational-audio breakdowns. We've tracked 66 distinct Voice AI patterns across production AI agent deployments — most commonly in Speech and Audio systems. One recurring example: Accent and Dialect Bias — ASR Performs Significantly Worse on Non-Standard Accents
Each pattern below documents the specific failure mode, why it happens, and how teams have mitigated it in practice — use this page as a reference when building guardrails, writing evals, or debugging an agent that's already misbehaving in this way.
Agent Self-Attribution Errors
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Claims It Will Perform Actions Beyond Its Capabilities
AI Disclosure Failures
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Mishandles Questions About Being AI/Bot
Audio Artifact Generation
Frequency:Occasional
Category:Speech and Audio
TTS Produces Clicks, Pops, Distortion, or Other Audio Artifacts
Audio Quality Degradation
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Poor Audio Quality from Network or Device Issues
Backchannel Timing Errors
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent's Acknowledgment Cues ("uh-huh", "right") Occur at Wrong Moments
Background Noise Failures
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
ASR Accuracy Degrades Significantly in Noisy Environments
Barge-In Failures
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
User Cannot Interrupt Agent's Speech
Brand and Term Mispronunciation
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
TTS Mispronounces Brand Names, Domain Terms, or Key Phrases
Call Disconnection Handling
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Fails to Handle Mid-Call Disconnections Gracefully
Device Compatibility Issues
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Performance Varies Significantly Across Devices
Disfluency Calibration Failures
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent's Filler Words and Speech Disfluencies Don't Match Persona or Context
Domain Vocabulary Gaps
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
ASR Fails to Recognize Industry-Specific Terms
Echo and Feedback Issues
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent's Own Audio Interferes with User Speech Detection
Emotional Expression Overuse
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Overuses Laughter, Exclamation Marks, and Emotional Cues
Emotional Tone Mismatch
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Voice Emotion Doesn't Match Message Content or Context
End-of-Turn Detection
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Can't Reliably Detect When User Has Finished Speaking
Filler Word Mishandling
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
ASR Misinterprets or Fails to Filter Conversational Fillers
Graceless Call Ending
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Call Ends Awkwardly Without Natural Closure
Hesitation Mishandling
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Pressures Hesitant Callers Instead of Providing Low-Friction Options
Homophones Confusion
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
ASR Selects Wrong Word Among Sound-Alike Options
Identity Manipulation
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Can Be Manipulated Into Adopting Different Personas or Revealing Prompt
Incremental Capture Failures
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Waits Until All Fields Collected Before Saving Data
Intent Boundary Confusion
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Similar Intents Misclassified Due to Overlapping Definitions
Internal Process Leakage
Frequency:Occasional
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Reveals Backend Operations, Routing Logic, or Internal Details
Interruption Mishandling
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Doesn't Properly Handle User Corrections and Interruptions
Language Barrier Failures
Frequency:Occasional
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Cannot Communicate Due to Unsupported or Incomprehensible Language
Low Confidence Mishandling
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
ASR Confidence Scores Not Used Effectively
Monologue Without Engagement
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Delivers Long Feature Lists or Information Without Pausing for Engagement
Multi-Field Collection Overload
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Asks for Multiple Data Fields in a Single Turn
Multi-Speaker Confusion
Frequency:Occasional
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Can't Distinguish Between Multiple Speakers
Multi-Turn Context Loss
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Loses Context Across Conversation Turns
Multilingual Code-Switching Failures
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Fails to Match or Maintain Caller's Language Choice
Name Recognition Failures
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
ASR Fails to Correctly Transcribe Personal and Business Names
Negative Banlist Priming
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Long "Never Say X" Lists Inadvertently Prime the Model to Output Banned Content
Number and Date Errors
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
ASR Incorrectly Transcribes Numbers, Dates, and Times
Opening Timing Mismatch
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Opening Doesn't Account for Caller's Greeting State
Outcome Classification Errors
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Call Outcomes Incorrectly Classified, Affecting Follow-up Actions
Override Signal Failures
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Fails to Detect or Respond to Conversation-Stopping Signals
Premature Call Ending
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Ends Call When Caller Pauses, Interrupts, or Shows Confusion
Prompt Bloat Latency
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Oversized System Prompts Cause Dead Air Due to Time-to-First-Token Delays
Pronunciation Errors
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
TTS Mispronounces Words, Names, or Domain Terms
Prosody Mismatch
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Speech Rhythm, Stress, and Intonation Don't Match Content
Qualification Flow Violations
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Skips Required Steps or Asks Questions Out of Sequence
Rapport Absence
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Fails to React to Caller's Personal Comments or Emotional Cues
Response Adaptation Failure
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Continues Planned Flow Instead of Adapting to Caller's Response
Response Latency Issues
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Takes Too Long to Respond
Scope Boundary Violations
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Answers Questions or Provides Information Outside Approved Knowledge
Script Compliance Drift
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Deviates from Required Phrases, Boundaries, or Conversation Structure
Silence Misinterpretation
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Incorrectly Interprets Pauses and Silence
Slot Extraction Errors
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Critical Information Extracted Incorrectly or Inconsistently
Slow Tool Silence
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Goes Silent During Tool Execution Without Acknowledgment
Spoken Form Failures
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Numbers, Dates, and Formatted Text Not Converted to Spoken Form
SSML and Markup Failures
Frequency:Occasional
Category:Speech and Audio
Speech Markup Not Processed Correctly
Streaming ASR Instability
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Real-Time Transcription Changes Mid-Utterance
Text Prompt Voice Failure
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
System Prompts Designed for Text Chatbots Fail in Voice Conversations
Tool Description Failures
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Vague or Poor Tool Descriptions Cause Wrong Tool Calls or Bad Parameters
Turn-Taking Errors
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent and User Speak Over Each Other
Unauthorized Commitments
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Makes Promises Outside Allowed Scope (No Spam, Follow-up Guarantees, Delivery Promises)
Unnatural Conversational Style
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Sounds Robotic, Scripted, or Inauthentically Enthusiastic
Unnecessary Data Collection
Frequency:Occasional
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Requests Personal Information Beyond What's Needed
Unverified Data Usage
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Uses Caller-Provided Information Without Verification
Vague Consent Exploitation
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Accepts Ambiguous or Passive Consent as Full Permission
Verbosity Despite Brevity Instructions
Frequency:Very Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Produces Long Responses Despite Explicit Length Constraints
Voice Consistency Issues
Frequency:Occasional
Category:Speech and Audio
Voice Characteristics Change Unexpectedly During Conversation
Wrong Number / Wrong Person Handling
Frequency:Common
Category:Speech and Audio
Agent Fails to Detect or Handle When Call Reaches Unintended Recipient