Mivi, the Hyderabad-born Indian startup known for its deep commitment to domestic innovation, has taken a bold leap forward with the launch of Mivi AI—India’s first human-like conversational AI platform integrated into Mivi AIBuds.
Unlike conventional virtual assistants, Mivi AI offers emotionally intelligent, human-like interactions crafted specifically for India’s rich linguistic diversity. More than just a tech milestone, it reflects how Indian startups are increasingly driving innovation—delivering distinctive, localized solutions that combine affordability and cutting-edge intelligence to reshape the consumer technology landscape.
Mivi, already recognized for its near 100% in-house manufacturing and staunch support of the Make in India movement, extends its ethos into the AI domain—building a proprietary platform that understands not just the user’s commands, but also their context, preferences, and emotions.
In an exclusive interaction, Rahul Sah, Managing Editor at DeviceNext, spoke with Midhula Devabhaktuni, Co-founder and CMO of Mivi, who shared the inspiring journey behind Mivi AI—a story of relentless R&D, technological firsts, and a bold vision to reshape how consumers connect with electronics in the AI era.
Let’s start with the big news—what is Mivi AI, and what motivated its development as part of your latest wearable innovation?
Mivi AI is our vision of what true conversational AI should feel like—natural, personal, and emotionally intelligent. About 18 months ago, as LLMs were emerging, we realized that simply integrating existing assistants like Alexa or Google Assistant wouldn’t create the kind of human connection we wanted.
Today’s AIs can answer questions, but they don’t converse—they don’t understand who you are, remember your preferences, or respond like a real friend or mentor would. And that’s the gap we wanted to bridge.
We looked back at how, historically, voice has been the most natural medium for humans to communicate—long before reading and writing became widespread. We wanted Mivi AI to bring back that emotional depth to technology: to be a non-judgmental, ever-present companion you could talk to naturally, without needing to tap, swipe, or search.
Our goal was clear: build an AI that lives inside a wearable, always ready to listen, understand, and converse—making everyday interactions with technology as effortless as speaking to a friend.
What kind of user challenges were you addressing that existing assistants weren’t solving?
Today’s AI assistants operate largely in silos. Ask them how to cook something, and you’ll get a long, generic recipe. Mivi AI is designed to respond like a friend who knows you: “Do you have boneless chicken? Great, let’s start with that.” It’s not just a command-response system—it’s a personalized guide.
We realized that in India, especially, technology adoption is most successful when it feels natural. Mivi AI doesn’t require a screen, a search bar, or a click. You just say, “Hi Mivi,” and the experience begins—genuinely human, contextual, and relevant.
Mivi AI stands out for its natural, conversational interactions, contextual awareness, and adaptability to diverse Indian accents. Could you walk us through the technology behind it—and is it built on a proprietary model or an existing LLM framework?
We built Mivi AI with multiple technological layers—from hardware to custom AI frameworks. First, we developed a custom low-power processor for our Mivi AIBuds that enables continuous listening without draining the battery. Then, we built a dedicated neural network specifically for the “Hi Mivi” wake word, which we trained on thousands of voice samples collected from across India.
Every 100 kilometers in India, the accent changes—and Mivi AI adapts to that. We put tremendous effort into making sure the assistant can recognize and respond accurately, no matter where a user is from.
On the AI backbone side, we leverage existing LLMs for reasoning capabilities, but we completely reimagined the interaction layer. We built our own models to ensure Mivi AI retains memory, maintains context, and delivers personalized, conversational interactions that feel truly human.
Considering Mivi AI is always listening for “Hi Mivi,” how do you address privacy and data security concerns?
Privacy was a foundational design principle for us. Mivi AI listens passively for the wake word “Hi Mivi,” but it does not record, store, or process any data until the user actively engages. Only once the wake word is detected does the system capture the conversation snippet needed to respond—and even then, users have full control.
Through the companion app, users can view, manage, or delete their AI profile anytime. Mivi AI maintains only contextual memory—such as preferences or user traits—but does not store full conversations.
We also use prompt engineering techniques to maintain conversational continuity without recording entire transcripts. This ensures that interactions remain fluid, memory-aware, and intelligent, while significantly enhancing user privacy and minimizing data storage.
Protecting user trust was as important to us as building a human-like AI experience—and every layer of Mivi AI was engineered with that priority in mind.
From a hardware-software integration perspective, how did you balance Mivi AI’s intelligence with battery life and earbud performance?
Balancing intelligence with battery life was one of our biggest challenges. On the hardware side, we optimized the architecture to ensure continuous listening and real-time AI responsiveness without draining the battery—a critical factor, because users expect all-day performance without bulky designs.
But the real innovation lay in the software ecosystem. We built a completely new companion app to manage secure, efficient cloud communication, minimizing data transfer and processing load. Most importantly, we developed a custom interaction layer on top of existing LLMs, designed specifically for memory retention, contextual awareness, and personalization—while being lightweight enough to maintain power efficiency.
It was a multi-layered integration of hardware and intelligent software, engineered not just for high performance, but for long-lasting, seamless everyday use—so that users experience natural, human-like interactions without compromising convenience.
In real-world usage, how do you see Mivi AI standing out, and could you tell us more about the avatar system that personalizes the user experience?
Mivi AI is designed to adapt to every moment of a user’s day—from offering a quick recipe, career advice, or skincare tips to simply providing someone to talk to. Its versatility lies in an intelligent avatar system, which we internally call the “sage.”
Without the user needing to intervene, Mivi AI dynamically activates the right persona—be it a chef, mentor, therapist, or friend—based on the context of the conversation. The switching is seamless and invisible, allowing users to engage naturally across topics without losing continuity.
This context-aware, multi-role personalization is what makes Mivi AI truly human-like—delivering not just information, but companionship and intuitive understanding in everyday life.
We also use prompt engineering techniques to maintain conversation context without storing full transcripts—this helps preserve privacy while keeping interactions fluid and intelligent.
Lastly, how do you see Mivi AI evolving within your product ecosystem and beyond earbuds?
Mivi AI is not just a feature—it’s a full-fledged platform we’ve built to power the future of consumer electronics. While the AIBuds are the first products to integrate it, our vision extends far beyond audio.
We are actively working to embed Mivi AI into smart speakers, IoT devices, and smart cameras. For instance, with cameras, instead of users scrolling through hours of footage, Mivi AI could intelligently summarize key events—like when your child returned home or if any unusual activity was detected—saving both time and effort.
Similarly, in speakers, AI will transform interaction from simple playback to conversational engagement, and in IoT, we envision predictive, humanized control over devices based on personalized preferences.
This marks a fundamental behavioral shift: users won’t need to “operate” devices anymore; they will simply converse with them. Our goal is to change not just the landscape of audio, but the way AI integrates into everyday life—leading India’s charge into AI-driven consumer electronics on the global stage.
