Block Launches Dessa: Real-Time Emotion Recognition Model

Block, the company behind Square and Cash App, has launched Dessa, a speech model that processes audio directly without converting it to text. This model is designed to recognize emotions, sarcasm, and pauses in real time, making it unique in its field. Dessa runs locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max but is not yet publicly available. The model was trained entirely on human speech data, enhancing its ability to capture emotions that text-based models often miss.