Google DeepMind is hiring the CEO and several top engineers from Hume AI, a startup working on emotionally intelligent voice interfaces, as part of a new licensing agreement, WIRED has learned. Financial details of the deal are confidential, but Hume AI says the company will continue to supply its technology to other frontier AI labs. Hume AI expects to bring in $100 million in revenue in 2026 as it works with AI labs on tuning AI models to be more capable and useful voice helpers, says John Beadle, cofounder and managing partner of AEGIS Ventures, which invested in Hume AI. The Hume AI deal could position Google to compete even more aggressively with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which already features a lifelike voice mode. The Hume AI deal is the latest arrangement that blurs the line between a partnership and a conventional acquisition.