Voice: Part 1 - Design Matters

Inflection Point

In our previous posts, Voice Speed and Voice Agents Rising, we noted an inflection point would soon be reached in voice technologies. The performance of Voice Agents was mirroring, and in some instances, exceeding the performance of humans at certain tasks. It was more than just carrying a conversation, but included gathering information, and responding to queries in astonishing ways. We think the inflection point has been reached, and Gartner seems to agree based on their recently published Hype Cycle.

Our recent projects building Voice Agents underscores the opportunity for companies to leverage this technology for growth, and reaching new markets. We invite you to try a demo we posted. (All you need to do is sign in for a 'one time password' and then select the 'people icon' to activate an agent. With the Cypress Agent, you can interact, find a villa, inquire about amenities, and even reserve a room. )

We think the time has arrived as well to shift from ‘why’ and ‘when’ to ‘what and ‘how.’. We hope you join us in this three-part series exploring the remarkable revolution in process automation that will mark 2026.

The Design Point: Things Speak

To build a world-class voice interface, you must change how you view your business data. We operate on a design philosophy we call "Things Speak."

Imagine if every entity in your business — a hotel room, a spa appointment slot, a restaurant table — had a voice. In the past, these were static database entries. In the era of Voice AI, data-driven design is not only the goal but the imperative for retrofitting your valuable content to drive accurate and high precision voice interactions.

When we design for voice, we don't script linear conversations. We define the attributes and behaviors of these entities so comprehensively that the AI can dynamically generate the workflow. This is a shift from imperative programming (telling the bot exactly what to say next) to declarative orchestration.

For example, an imperative design tries to guess every path a user might take. A declarative design defines the "Book Hotel Stay" tool with a strict schema (e.g., specific check-in/out dates required). The agent’s job is simply to fill those slots. If the user says, "I want a room for next Tuesday," the agent knows purely by design that the "check-out" date is missing and asks for it. This makes the system deterministic, secure, and far less prone to hallucination.

Context Engineering: The Brain of the Operation

The biggest trap in Voice AI design is the "Context Window." As noted by researchers in Context Engineering, raw token capacity isn't the problem; attention is.

When you dump too much information into an agent, you risk the "lost-in-the-middle" phenomenon, where the AI recalls the beginning and end of your prompt but forgets the crucial instructions buried in the center.

Effective design requires Context Engineering—curating the smallest possible set of high-signal tokens to achieve the outcome. We don't just "train" the bot; we engineer its attention span to ensure it adheres to business logic, tone, and security protocols without getting distracted.

Data-Driven, Not Data-Duplicated

A common fear is that deploying voice agents requires building a massive new database. Design matters here, too.

From the start, establish an architecture for your voice agents which avoids the maintenance nightmare by duplicating data. Instead, effective Voice Design ingests your existing system of record—your website, your CMS, your inventory management system—and uses that as the "Context Model."

By creating new routes to your existing data, we arm the voice agent with the exact same truth your website holds. If you update a price on your site, the agent knows it instantly. This is how you scale: by using voice as a wedge to unlock the broader platform of your business intelligence.

With careful planning, you give your content a voice.

Design is the foundation. But even the best design fails if the execution is slow. Join us for Part 2, where we discuss why, in the world of voice, milliseconds are the difference between a conversion and a hang-up.

Give us a call. We'd welcome the chance to share our insights on navigating this shift.

And to our clients and colleagues, we wish you a Joyous Christmas! as you celebrate with family and friends.