Pulse Pro
Model: Pulse Pro · smallest.ai
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Response time · transcription only
Smallest AI's Pulse ranks #2 on the Open ASR Leaderboard at 5.42% average WER, ahead of AssemblyAI Universal (6.47%, #12), with ~64ms time-to-first-token. AssemblyAI leads on read-speech accuracy and audio-intelligence features; Pulse wins on aggregate accuracy, latency, and real-time voice-agent performance.
AssemblyAI
Model: Universal-3
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Response time · transcription only
Pulse Speech-to-Text
Real-time transcription with industry-leading accuracy and ~64ms time-to-first-token, built for live voice agents.
30+ Languages
Accurate transcription across 30+ languages, with native English performance ranked #2 on the Open ASR Leaderboard.
Enterprise-Grade Compliance
SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, ISO 27001, and HIPAA-ready — with a Business Associate Agreement available for healthcare deployments.
Features
Benchmarks
Benchmark
▼
WER % on the Hugging Face ESB benchmark (9 English datasets, streaming). Lower is better. Pulse is competitive on aggregate and leads on meeting/noisy audio; AssemblyAI leads on clean read speech. Source: HF ESB, internal evaluation.
Frequently
asked questions
Can Pulse STT run on-premise?
Is Pulse STT accurate enough to replace AssemblyAI?
How does AssemblyAI's actual cost compare to the $0.15/hr headline?
What does switching from AssemblyAI to Pulse STT involve?