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All Australian National University theses are in digital form. You can search for them online through the  theses collection in ANU Open Research , and are also searchable via the  Library Catalogue .

The majority of ANU theses are openly accessible but a small number are restricted due to cultural sensitivities, copyright controls or other restrictions.

Digital theses

Digital theses can be searched online through the  theses collection in ANU Open Research .

The Australian National University Library’s theses collection holds the research output of the University’s academic community over the last 60 years. The first ANU thesis was awarded in 1953.

By digitising its print theses collection, ANU Library delivers the University’s unique and original research in a freely available, open access online collection. Digital delivery expands engagement with the Library’s collections, provides visibility to the university’s scholarship, and supports the careers of its academic community.

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The majority of theses are openly accessible; however, some may not be available under open access conditions due to author or copyright restrictions.

If an author wishes to restrict access to their thesis (or part of it), they can elect to do so as part of the online submission process. If after 12 months an extension to that restriction is required, a new application must be completed.

In the case of a Higher Degree by Research thesis, approval is required from the Dean, Higher Degree Research and can be sought by filling out an  Extension of Thesis Restriction of Access Request Form  or emailing  [email protected] . If approved, the Open Research team will be notified and restrict access to the online version of your thesis in line with the decision made.

Read our  Restriction Infosheet  for more information about applying for restrictions on theses.

Hard copy theses

Hard copy theses can be requested  for reading within the Library, but cannot be borrowed.

The majority of theses are available for research or study, however some may not be available due to author or copyright restrictions.

To check whether access restrictions apply to a particular thesis, ask at the  Menzies Library  Information Desk or email the  ANU Library .

Non-ANU readers are advised to check in advance whether they will be granted access to a particular thesis.

Location of hard copy theses

• ANU Doctoral and Masters’ theses (1953-2018) –  Menzies Library
• Master of Law and International Law theses (pre-October 1987) –  Law Library
• ANU Honours theses – held by the  ANU Colleges
• ANU Law Honours theses (selected) – Law Library or online through  ANU Open Research
• Non-ANU theses (without access restrictions) are on the open shelves.
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A graduate course offered by the ANU National Security College .

• Code NSPO8031
• Unit Value 12 to 24 units
• Offered by ANU National Security College
• ANU College ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
• Course subject National Security Policy
• Areas of interest Policy Studies, Security Studies
• Work Integrated Learning Projects
• Academic career PGRD
• Sue Thompson
• Mode of delivery Online or In Person
• Offered in First Semester 2023 Second Semester 2023 See Future Offerings

• Introduction

Learning Outcomes

Work integrated learning, indicative assessment, inherent requirements, requisite and incompatibility, prescribed texts.

• Offerings and Dates

This course is available for on-campus & remote (online) learning. All students participate in interactive, real-time classes.

NSPO8031 Thesis is a 24-unit course available in the Master of National Security Policy program. In relation to relevant thesis topics, the notion of national security (together with any policies related to it) is understood in broad terms and students are therefore welcome to investigate traditional and/or non-traditional security issues. The completion of this thesis will demonstrate an advanced aptitude for conducting innovative research and producing high quality writing with minimal supervision. This program is also equally suitable for students who may be interested in continuing with further research work or as a PhD candidate. The Course Convenor will work with each student to identify a thesis supervisor.

Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:

• Pose a significant research question relating National Security Policy;
• Investigate this question creatively, critically, ethically, and independently, including through sophisticated use of appropriate theory and methodology as appropriate to National Security Policy, and place these investigations in the context of the relevant intellectual tradition; and
• Communicate their research and its findings through an appropriate medium.

This WIL component provides you with the opportunity to deeply engage with the course content, drive your leaning, build skills and confidence, and perform the learned tasks more effectively.

• Presentation (0) [LO 2,3]
• Thesis (15000 wds) (100) [LO 1,2,3]

The ANU uses Turnitin to enhance student citation and referencing techniques, and to assess assignment submissions as a component of the University's approach to managing Academic Integrity. While the use of Turnitin is not mandatory, the ANU highly recommends Turnitin is used by both teaching staff and students. For additional information regarding Turnitin please visit the ANU Online website.

Students enrolling in a 12 unit load over two semesters will expected to complete 260 hours per semester. Students enrolling in a 24 unit load over one semester will be expected to complete 520 hours per semester. This will include a minimum of 10 hours contact with the supervisor and a weekly one-hour seminar.   It is the joint responsibility of the student and supervisor to arrange times for contact. 

Not applicable

You will need to contact the ANU National Security College to request a permission code to enrol in this course.

Tuition fees are for the academic year indicated at the top of the page.  

Commonwealth Support (CSP) Students If you have been offered a Commonwealth supported place, your fees are set by the Australian Government for each course. At ANU 1 EFTSL is 48 units (normally 8 x 6-unit courses). More information about your student contribution amount for each course at Fees . 

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Elizabeth buchanan researched the russian arctic strategy in moscow.

"A PhD on the geopolitics of Russian Arctic strategy meant fieldwork was always going to be challenging. Certainly, recent tensions on the Crimean Peninsula made for a fascinating time to be based in Moscow. En route to Russia I spent a short period conducting fieldwork in London where I was working from The Royal Institute of International Affairs. This allowed for unparalleled access to Russian archives and some of the fields leading experts. Given the nature of the Institute I was able to discuss my research with a range of academics working across the intersecting fields of energy security and climate change; strategic and defence studies as well as Russian and East European affairs – all relevant dimensions of my research. Furthermore, London is a central hub for an array of EU energy advisors as well as oil and gas majors all with keen interest in Arctic offshore developments. Meetings with key individuals not only served to inform my research objectives, but also allowed me to expand my industry contact base, aiding my professional development.

Returning to Canberra’s infamous winter chill days after a ritualistic period of morning coffee in the Kremlin gardens provided for a jarring dose of reality. I now well and truly understand the trials of post fieldwork blues. So for those about to undertake fieldwork overseas – take the time each day to absorb your surroundings. Leave the archives and libraries for lunch outside. My understanding of Russian Arctic ambitions was as much informed by the everyday Russian I engaged with as it was by the experts and field leaders I met with. All in all, I had an epic fieldwork journey and it would not have been possible without the support of my academic home – the Centre for European Studies – and the 2014 SPIR Fieldwork Grant Award. Now, time to finish this thesis…"

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Contemporary art across the evolving global peripheries

• ARTMargins Online: Exhibition Reviews

Thinking Pictures: Conceptual Art from Moscow and the Baltics

by Mária Janušová · Published 02/03/2023

Although fewer than two decades have passed since its opening, the Kumu Art Museum, located in Estonia’s capital city Tallinn, is widely acknowledged for its critical exhibitions that often highlight the nation’s traumatic past. Earlier this year, the museum showed Thinking Pictures: Conceptual Art from Moscow and the Baltics, curated by Anu Allas (professor at the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture of the Estonian Academy of Arts), Liisa Kaljula (curator at the Kumu Art Museum), and Jane A. Sharp (curator at the Zimmerli Art Museum and professor in the Department of Art History at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA). The exhibition focused on the dialogue between conceptual art from Moscow and the Baltic countries in the 1970s and 1980s—when Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were still part of the Soviet Union—and on how this dialogue might affect the way we think about the phenomenon known as “Moscow Conceptualism,” a now globally recognized tendency whose best-known representatives include Ilya Kabakov, Viktor Pivovarov, Vitaly Komar & Alexander Melamid, Erik Bulatov, and Andrei Monastyrski.( The Kumu exhibition was a development of an earlier show curated by Jane A. Sharp, entitled Thinking Pictures: Moscow Conceptual Art from the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection that was shown in 2016 at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers State University. See: https://zimmerli.emuseum.com/exhibitions/32/thinking-pictures-moscow-conceptual-art-from-the-norton-and )

The opening of Thinking Pictures was scheduled for early March 2022, just a few days after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These horrifying political events put the show’s curators in a difficult position: should they open the exhibition as planned, or cancel it in solidarity with Ukraine? They finally decided to open the show, but without any artwork visible. The works were then gradually installed over the following few weeks until all of the works were visible in the exhibition space. To see the (almost) empty exhibition was an intense and ultimately rewarding experience, and the curators’ decision was an impressive act of critical curatorship that is cognizant of the way in which art is impacted by events beyond its control.

Thinking Pictures: Conceptual Art from Moscow and the Baltics, exhibition view. Photo by Paco Ulman, courtesy of Kumu Art Museum.

The curatorial concept is explained in more detail in the exhibition catalog.( Thinking Pictures. Conceptual Art from Moscow and the Baltics . Eds. Anu Allas, Liisa Kaljula, Jane A. Sharp. Tallinn: Kumu Art Museum, 2022. ) As stated in the introduction, the project ambitiously aimed to “broaden the understanding of conceptual art created in the late Soviet environment, to break through the narrow confines of national art history narratives, and to disrupt the hierarchy between the center and the periphery (…).”( Allas, “Introduction,” Ibid, 8. ) The curators used the exhibition as a tool for writing a history of conceptual art of the Baltic region. Relying on Piotr Piotrowski’s concept of horizontal art history, they considered the phenomenon of Moscow Conceptualism as hegemonic and hierarchical within the discourse of East European conceptual art—due to the global acknowledgment of the term, as well as its inherent unifying art historical narrative, written from the center of the former Eastern Bloc, Moscow. Therefore, they decided to use diverse narratives, told from their position located in the Baltics, on the edge of the former Soviet Union.

The exhibition was well-grounded in Piotrowski’s ideas on how to write East European art history, adopting his approach that included transnationality, critical revision, hybridization, pluralization, heterogeneity, discursivity, and deconstruction of the center.( Anu Allas was a co-editor of the publication Globalizing East European Art Histories , which emerged from a conference in Lublin, Poland, convened by Piotr Piotrowski in 2014. See Globalizing East European Art Histories: Past and Present. eds. Beata Hock, Anu Allas. New York/London: Routledge, 2018. ) Based on the artistic material from Soviet Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the exhibition manifested the writing of art history which is “polyphonic, multi-dimensional, devoid of geographic hierarchies.”( Piotr Piotrowski, “1989: The Spatial Turn,” in Piotr Piotrwowski, Art and Democracy in Post-Communist Europe . (London: Reaktion Books, 2012), 39. ) This diversified nature was emphasized by the selection of various artists from different environments or contexts, using variable artistic media and approaches.

Thinking Pictures consisted of twelve thematic groups designed to express the heterogenous, plural, or fluid character of conceptual art in late-Soviet Moscow and the Baltics. Each of the groups comprised works by conceptual artists from Moscow, as well as Soviet Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, with all the works being displayed with equal status, and none held in any way superior to the others. Each topic was labeled and briefly explained by the wall texts. Considering the limitations of the exhibition space, there were perhaps too many topics covered by the show, which could result in the viewer’s confusion. However, this also confirmed the discursive body of the exhibition with a multi-layered, fluid think tank. Several topics intertwine with one another, and, as stated in the catalog, the show is divided into three main blocks.( Allas, “Introduction,” 11. )

The first section comprised themes including The Soviet Universe, Sots Art, City Interventions, and Travelling into the Green, all focusing on various aspects of everyday Soviet life. For instance, one can witness the motif of social isolation in two paintings from Viktor Pivovarov’s series Project for a Lonely Man (1975). These flat paintings, each combining an image with a word, recall posters in the field of graphic arts. The depiction of a small Soviet flat’s floor plan or a simple room with ordinary things that have bizarre labels attached to them is reminiscent of Soviet instruction manuals. Meanwhile, the painting My Passport (1979) by Latvian artist Bruno Vasiļevskis captured the Soviet passport in precise, photorealistic detail. This display of such a travel document given the travel restrictions for citizens of the USSR evokes the harshness of Soviet reality. Another photorealistic work, Victory’s Interior (1984-1985) by Lithuanian Romanas Vilkauskas, shows a wall covered with old, yellowed newspapers. At the center of the wall, there is a photograph of a smiling Stalin, highlighting the contradiction between the shiny, optimistic state propaganda and the actual poverty of the Soviet people.

The ironic representation of Soviet propaganda and visual culture more generally dominates the works by the Russian artistic duo Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid. Both are key figures in the conceptual tendency of Sots Art. Their work Our Goal is Communism! (1972) uses a well-known Soviet propaganda slogan that the artists signed. By appropriating officialdom’s visual language, Komar & Melamid attempt to disrupt the seriousness of Soviet iconography. Iconic Soviet symbols were also creatively used by Estonian artist Leonhard Lapin. His four silkscreens Stalinism and Abstractionism, Stalinism and Satanism, Suprematism and Socialism, and Surrealism and Socialism (1990) show how Lapin transformed these emblems into pure geometric forms in an effort to undermine the authority of the state.

The Kumu exhibition also pointed to the city and to nature as important sources of inspiration for Soviet conceptualist artists. The series of photomontages Vilnius Notebook I. (1988) by Lithuanian Mindaugas Navakas, for instance, depicts typical Soviet apartment blocks altered with various monumental designs that disrupt the monotony of the banal Soviet reality. Similarly, the Latvian artist group The Emissionists (Pollucionisti), in their photomontage series Bizarred Riga (1978), comments ironically and critically on the problems and the failures of the Soviet urban environment. Taking a different approach, other artists chose to abandon the urban environment altogether. Thus, the performance Action 33: The Russian World (1985)—a phrase that rings very differently to us today than it did back then—by Collective Actions shows group members in a wintery landscape locked in observation. Rather than offering a strong narrative, Collective Actions is interested in the process of observation itself, and in the relationship between the audience and the performers. This is also reflected in the happening Conceptual Games (1978) by Lithuanian artists Kaze Zimblytė, Gediminas Karalius, Petras Mazuras, and Vladas Vildžiunas, who created improvised site-specific installations on the outskirts of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

The show’s second part united the themes of Text and Image; Fundamental Lexicons: Circle, Square, Triangle; and Objective Art, and expressed the Soviet conceptual artists’ affinity for working with words, texts, books, poetry, geometric forms, and the ideas of the Russian avant-garde. The exhibition included examples of visual poetry, such as Raul Meel’s subtle series of drawings created on a typewriter, or Dmitri Prigov’s spiral text collages. Some works used various elements of the Soviet world as a universal visual language, reflecting the influence of French structuralism and its use of language as a model for understanding reality.

Leonhard Lapin’s Self-Portrait (1979) shows the artist’s head in profile and in red, reminding the viewer of familiar portraits of Lenin. Meanwhile, Russian artist Alexander Kosolapov, in the photographic series Gesticulations. Language of the Masses (1978-1979) imitates the strict gestures and expressions of members of the Soviet armed forces, and Russian artist Leonid Sokov’s Project to Construct Glasses for Every Soviet Citizen (1975) is a pair of carved brown wooden spectacles with lenses in the shape of a red communist star, which satirically offers a way to see a bright, happy Soviet reality.

Soviet conceptual artists often worked with geometric shapes reminiscent of the Russian avant-garde, and with Kazimir Malevich’s idea of art as a spiritual substance. The exhibition included several examples of this trend, such as Latvian Sirje Runge’s series Geometry (1976-1977) in which she uses basic geometric structures and colors to create dynamic compositions and illusory spaces. Likewise, Estonian artist Silver Vahtre, in the series Blue Skies (1983), transforms banal landscapes into energetic spiritual images through the use of elementary geometric forms. “Thinking Pictures” also included Komar and Melamid’s ironic deconstruction of avant-garde symbols in the project Circle, Square, Triangle (1975) where the artist duo presented Suprematist geometric designs as commodified home decorations.

The last section of the exhibition focused on the themes of Picture as Critique, Body and Space, Fading Images, and Existential Questions. Compared with previous sections, this one dealt with more theoretical, philosophical, or even existential problems, including the artist’s identity. In his Self-Portrait in a Vermeer Painting (1985), for example, Latvian artist Miervaldis Polis tried to join the history of Western art by painting himself into a reproduction of a famous work by Vermeer. Two black and white photographs from the series Signatures (1976) by Leonid Sokov capture a typographical sign with the artist’s surname. While the first photo depicts the artist’s signature being thrown out in the yard like a piece of trash, the second one shows that the typographical object is already being taken away by an excavator. The artist’s name is also the subject of Composition (1960s-1970s) by Lithuanian Kaze Zimblytė, who collaged newspaper scraps to spell her own name.

Unofficial neo-avant-garde artists in Eastern Europe regularly faced harassment by the state; they were frequently interrogated by secret agents, their exhibitions were closed, and their art often remained invisible to a larger audience. These circumstances were reflected in several artworks in the show, including a series of photographic nudes by Lithuanian artist Violeta Bubelytė (1982-1985) that captures a naked female body in a fluid space between reality and abstraction. Moscow conceptualist Irina Nakhova, for her part, explores the fragile relations between the body and its environment. Her photograph Room no. 3 (1986) shows a figure sitting in an interior where all other objects are wrapped up. A work by second-generation Moscow conceptualist Vadim Zakharov, V. A. Zakharov Conducts an Information Exchange with the Sun (1978), shows the photographic documentation of the artist’s performance in the middle of an ensemble of gray Socialist housing blocks. Using a small pocket mirror, Zakharov creates a reflection of the sun, and thereby he seems to be holding a bright beam of light in his hand. One can see this gesture as a symbolic attempt to disrupt the grayness of Soviet everyday life or the artist’s exit from the closed world of the Iron Curtain.

Basic existential questions are also raised in Viktor Pivovarov’s series Face (1975), which shows the portrait of a woman whose face we cannot fully see because it is covered by the representation of her thoughts. As the series progresses, the portrait gradually falls apart until it finally disappears completely. The blue background may be suggestive of the artist’s “blue” mood. Similarly, Lithuanian artist Kaze Zimblytė, in the paintings Moods (1985), expresses her dark feelings. The black rectangles surrounded by monochromatic areas of color recall Mark Rothko’s method of expressing emotions through color in painting. Finally, Latvian painter Bruno Vasiļevskis signals his immediate surroundings in his photorealist paintings Books (1984) and White Wall (1984) whose titles are a precise reflection of the works’ content.

Just like the exhibition, the catalog is also heterogeneous and discursive in its nature. The Estonian-English publication brings various, pluralistic perspectives on the topic of the late-Soviet conceptual art, with four articles focused on issues relating to the exhibition. The first one, “Inside the Picture: Moscow Conceptualism Revisited,” by Jane A. Sharp, provides the author’s analyses of Moscow Conceptualism and some of its key works; Liisa Kaljula’s article “Baltic Sots Art: Appropriation Art from the Western Periphery,” acquaints us with the tendency of Sots Art in the Baltic countries; Janis Taurens interprets two Latvian artistic groups: the Workshop for the Restoration of Unfelt Feelings (NSRD) and the Emissionists, as well as Latvian conceptual art through the lens of postcolonial theory; and Skaidra Trilupaitytė outlines the situation of the late Soviet era and contemporary art institutions in Lithuanian art in her text, “Lithuanian Semi-non-conformism, ‘Classical’ Rebel Art and Contemporary Art Institutional Quandaries.”

One can recognize three main aspects which make the exhibition Thinking Pictures a significant contribution to contemporary art theory and practice, and especially to the field of East European art history. Firstly, it showed the possible ways of creating art historical narratives and writing regional art history. The second point was a notion of the exhibition as a fluid, flexible and heterogeneous structure, which offers multiple voices and perspectives on the subject matter, and asks more questions than it gives straight answers. Thinking Pictures included numerous artworks and artists; however, one notable absence was the important Estonian artist Ülo Sooster, a close associate of Ilya Kabakov’s whose work provides a key link between the Russian and the Estonian unofficial art scene.

The last distinguished feature was the implementation of critical institutional and curatorial practices. Since the exhibition opened during the first weeks of the Russian war in Ukraine, the curators decided to open an empty exhibition, gradually filling it up with artworks as a sign of their disagreement with the war. All of this resonates with the notions of “critical curating,” a form of curatorial activism, with curators expanding their usual role;( Marie Fraser and Alice Jim Wai Ming, “Introduction. What is Critical Curating?,” RACAR: Revue d’art Canadienne/Canadian Art Review 43/2 (2018) 5-10. ) and “post-representational curating,” which is what art historian Nora Sternfeld describes as “the conscious involvement in public debates in solidarity with existing social struggles.”( Nora Sternfeld, “Involvements – A short introduction to curating between entanglement and solidarity,” Mustekala , 14. 10. 2013. https://mustekala.info/teemanumerot/kuratointi-3-13/involvements-a-short-introduction-to-curating-between-entanglement-and-solidarity/ (accessed January 29, 2023) ) Similarly, one can recognize in the Kumu exhibition Piotr Piotrowski’s theory of the “critical museum,” which he considered the ideal form of a museum for contemporary society. It is such a museum that reacts to the ongoing changes or challenges of the present world, is aware of its social responsibility, and uses its cultural authority and space to take an active role towards the public, helping to protect human rights and democratic processes.( Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius and Piotr Piotrowski, “Introduction,” in From Museum Critique to the Critical Museum . eds. Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius and Piotr Piotrowski. (Vermont: Ashgate, 2015), 1. ) And this is precisely what Thinking Pictures has accomplished.

Mária Janušová

Tags: Baltics conceptual art Estonia exhibition review Lativa Lithuania Moscow Thinking Pictures

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Hi, AI: Our Thesis on AI Voice Agents

Olivia Moore and Anish Acharya

• Hacker News

View this report on Gamma.

Now is the time to reinvent the phone call. Thanks to gen AI, no human will ever again have to make a call. Humans will spend time on the phone only when a call has value to them.

For businesses, this may mean: (1) time and labor cost savings from human callers; (2) potential to re-allocate resources towards increased revenue generation; and (3) reduced risk with more compliant and consistent customer experiences.

For consumers, voice agents can provide access to human-grade services without the need to pay or “match with” an actual human. Currently, this includes therapists, coaches, and companions — in the future, this is likely to encompass a much broader range of experiences built around voice. Like most other consumer software, the “winners” will be unpredictable!

Phone calls are an API to the world — and AI takes this to the next level.

Where We See Opportunity

There is massive opportunity at each layer — infra players, consumer interfaces, and enterprise agents. For B2C and B2B voice agents, we have a few hypotheses around the most exciting emergent products:

If you are building here, reach out to [email protected] and [email protected].

The Stack: How Do You Build a Voice Agent?

New, multi-modal models like GPT-4o may change the structure of the stack by “running” several of these layers concurrently via one model. This may reduce latency and cost, and power more natural conversational interfaces — as many agents haven’t been able to reach true human-like quality with the composed stack below.

To function, voice agents need to ingest human speech (ASR), process this input with an LLM and return an output, and then speak back to the human (TTS). 

For some companies/approaches, the LLM or a series of LLMs handles the conversational flow and emotionality. In other cases, there are unique engines to add emotion, manage interruptions, etc. “Full stack” voice providers offer this all in one place.

Consumer (B2C) and enterprise (B2B) apps sit on top of this stack. Even using third party providers, apps (typically) plug in a custom LLM — which often also serves as the conversational engine. 

Full Stack vs. Self-Assembled

Voice agent founders can choose between spinning up an agent on a full stack platform (ex. Retell , Vapi , Bland ) or assembling the stack themselves. In making this decision, there are a few key vectors:

These are some of the leading players across each stack level now. This is not a comprehensive market map, but represents the names most commonly raised by voice agent founders. We expect this stack to change significantly as multi-modal models emerge.

If you’re working on a voice agent infrastructure company, reach out to Jennifer Li ([email protected]) and Yoko Li ([email protected]) on our team.

B2B Agents: Our Thesis

We are transitioning from 1.0 AI voice (phone tree) →  2.0 wave of AI voice (LLM-based). 2.0 companies have been emerging in the last 6 months or so. 1.0 companies may be more accurate now, but the 2.0 approach should be much more scalable and accurate in the long term.

There is unlikely to be one horizontal model or platform that works across all types of enterprise voice agents. There are a few key differences across verticals: (1) call types, tones, and structures; (2) integrations and processes; and (3) GTM and “killer features.”

This is likely to mean an explosion of vertical agents that are highly opinionated in the UI. This requires founding teams with deep domain expertise or interest. Labor is the #1 cost center for many businesses — TAM is large for companies that “get it right.”

The most near-term opportunities may be in industries that live and die by phone appointments, have significant labor shortages, and have low call complexity. As agents become more sophisticated, they will be able to tackle more complex calls. 

B2B Agents: Evolution

We’ve seen three primary waves of tech in the B2B voice agent space:

Many voice agent companies are taking a vertical-specific approach for a specific industry (ex. auto services) or a specific type of task (ex. appointment scheduling). This is for a few reasons: 

• Execution difficulty. The quality bar is high to entrust calls to an AI — and the conversational flow (plus the backend workflow on the customer’s side) can quickly become complex/specific. Companies that build for the “edge cases” in these verticals have a better chance of success (ex. unique vocabulary a general model will misunderstand).
• Regulations and licenses. Some voice agent companies face special restrictions, certifications needed, etc. A classic example of this is healthcare (ex. HIPAA compliance), though this is also cropping up in categories like sales where there are AI cold calling regulations on a national level.
• Integrations. Nailing the user experience (both for the business and the consumer) in some categories may require a long tail of integrations — or specialized integrations that aren’t worthwhile to build unless you are attempting to serve that specific use case. 
• Wedge into other software. Voice is a natural entry into core customer actions like bookings, renewals, quotes, etc. In some cases, this will be a wedge into a broader vertical SaaS platform for these businesses — especially if the customer set still largely operates offline. 

B2B Agents: Where We See Opportunity

Llm based — but not necessarily 100% automated from day one..

The “strong form” of an AI voice agent will be an entirely LLM-driven conversation, not an interactive voice response (IVR) or phone tree approach. However, because LLMs are not 100% reliable all the way through, there is likely to be some (temporary) “human in the loop” for more sensitive/larger transactions. This also makes vertical-specific workflows particularly important, as they can maximize the probability of success while minimizing human interference with fewer edge cases.

Tuning custom models vs. prompting LLM approach.

B2B voice agents will need to navigate specialized (or vertical-specific) conversations for which a general LLM is likely insufficient. Many companies are tuning per customer models (using a few hundred or low thousands of data points) and will likely extrapolate this back to a company-wide base model. The custom tuning may even continue for enterprise clients. Note: Some companies may tune a “general” model (to be used across clients) for their specific use case(s), and then prompt on a per-customer basis. 

Technical teams with domain expertise.

Given their complexity, some prior AI background will be helpful — if not necessary — for spinning up and scaling high quality B2B voice agents. However, understanding how to package the product and wedge into the vertical is likely to be equally important — requiring either domain expertise or strong interest. You don’t need a PhD in AI to build and launch an enterprise voice agent!

Sharp POV on integrations + ecosystem. 

Similar to the above, buyers in each vertical have a few specific features or integrations that they are typically looking to see before they will make a purchase. In fact, this may be the proof point that elevates the product from “useful” to “magic” in their assessment. This is another reason why it makes sense to start fairly verticalized.

Either “enterprise grade” or strong product-led growth (PLG) motion.

For verticals with significant revenue concentration in the top companies/providers, voice agent companies may start with enterprises and eventually “trickle down” to SMBs with a self-serve product. SMB customers are desperate for solutions here and are willing to test a variety of options — but may not provide the scale/quality of data that allows a startup to tune the model to enterprise caliber.

B2C Agents: Our Thesis

In B2B, voice agents largely replace existing phone calls to complete a specific task. For consumer agents, the user has to choose to continue to engage, which is challenging, as voice is not always convenient to interact with. This means the product bar is “higher.”

The first and most obvious application of consumer voice agents is taking expensive or inaccessible human services, and replacing the supplier with an AI. This includes therapy, coaching, tutoring, and more — anything dialogue-based that can be completed virtually.

However, we believe the true magic in B2C voice agents is likely yet to come! We’re looking for products that use the power of voice to enable new kinds of “conversations” that didn’t exist before. This may reinvent the form factor of existing services, or create entirely new ones.

For products that nail the UX, voice agents provide an opportunity to engage consumers at a level never before seen in software — truly mimicking the human connection. This may manifest in the agent as the product , or voice as a mode of a broader product.

B2C Agents: Evolution

So far, the dominant consumer AI voice agents are from large companies, like ChatGPT Voice and Inflection’s Pi app. There are a few reasons consumer voice has been slower to emerge:

• Large companies already have consumer distribution and best-in-class models in terms of accuracy, latency, etc. Voice is not easy to deliver at scale.   This is especially true given the recent launch of GPT-4o.
• B2B voice agents are “plugging in” AI to an existing process — while B2C voice agents require users to adopt a new behavior. This can be slower/require a more magical product.
• Consumers have been negatively conditioned around voice AI due to experiences with products like Siri, so are not necessarily inspired to try new apps.
• Broad-based products are generally able to deliver on the basic use cases of voice AI — tutoring, companionship, etc. B2C voice startups are just starting to tackle use cases or create experiences that ChatGPT, Pi, etc. would not handle.

B2C Agents: Where We See Opportunity

Strong pov on why voice is necessary..

We are excited about products and founders that are opinionated on how voice brings unique value to the product — not just “voice for the sake of voice.” In many cases, a voice interface is actually a net negative versus a text interface, as it’s more inconvenient to consume and extract information from. 

Strong POV on why real time voice is necessary.

While voice is difficult to consume, real time voice is even more difficult (vs. async voice messages). We are excited about founders that have a perspective on why their product needs to be built around live conversations — perhaps it’s for human-like companionship, a practice environment, etc.

Non-skeuomorphic to pre-AI “product.”

We suspect that the strong-form products will not be a direct translation of a previously human to human conversation, where the AI voice agent simply plugs in for the human provider. First, it’s difficult to live up to that standard — but more importantly, there is an opportunity to deliver the same value better (more efficiently, more joyfully) using AI. 

Verticalized to the extent where model quality doesn’t = winner

The leading general consumer AI products (ChatGPT, Pi, Claude) have high quality voice modes. They can meaningfully engage in many types of conversations and interactions. And, they will likely win on latency and conversational flow in the near term as they host their own models and stack. 

We are excited to see startups succeed either by tailoring or tuning for a specific type of conversation, or building a UI that provides more context and value to the voice agent experience — ex. tracking progress over time, or steering the conversation/experience in an opinionated way.

If you’re building an AI voice agent, reach out to [email protected] and [email protected] — we’d love to hear from you.

Olivia Moore is a partner on the consumer tech team at Andreessen Horowitz, where she focuses on investing in AI.

Anish Acharya Anish Acharya is an entrepreneur and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. At a16z, he focuses on consumer investing, including AI-native products and companies that will help usher in a new era of abundance.

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The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. In addition, this content may include third-party advertisements; a16z has not reviewed such advertisements and does not endorse any advertising content contained therein.

This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly as well as unannounced investments in publicly traded digital assets) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/ .

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