Barge-in

What it is

Barge-in is the ability to interrupt the agent while it is talking. To support it the platform must keep listening while it plays audio, detect that the sound it hears is the caller and not its own voice echoing back down the line, decide the sound is speech rather than a cough or a door, stop the playback quickly, and tell the language model what was and was not heard by the caller so the conversation stays coherent.

Every one of those steps can go wrong. Echo on a telephone line makes the agent interrupt itself. Over-sensitive detection makes it stop for background noise. Under-sensitive detection makes it finish a twenty-second paragraph while the caller repeats "no, no, Thursday".

Why it matters when buying

Callers interrupt constantly: to correct a detail, to say "yes" before the agent finishes the offer, to stop a long read-out. How the agent behaves in that moment defines whether it feels like a conversation partner or a recording. It also affects accuracy: if the agent does not know which half of its sentence the caller heard, its next turn may refer to something the caller never received.

What to ask

In the demo, interrupt mid-offer with a new constraint and see whether the agent takes it in one turn. Cough or tap the desk while it speaks; it should carry on. Ask how quickly playback stops after speech is detected, and how the agent tracks what the caller actually heard. Ask whether barge-in can be disabled for legal disclosures that must be played in full.