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Integrate ai-coustics speech enhancement into your LiveKit voice agents in minutes. The LiveKit ai-coustics plugins (livekit-plugins-ai-coustics for Python, @livekit/plugins-ai-coustics for Node.js) provide real-time noise cancellation optimized for human-to-machine audio, improving transcription accuracy for your AI agents.
The plugins support two authentication modes:
  • LiveKit Cloud - authenticate via lk cloud auth, no ai-coustics SDK key needed.
  • ai-coustics SDK key - pass your license key directly, suitable for self-hosted environments.

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Setup Guide

Follow these steps to create a new LiveKit agent project with ai-coustics speech enhancement. Use the tabs in each code block to switch between Python and Node.js.
1

Create a LiveKit Cloud account

Sign up at LiveKit Cloud if you don’t already have an account.
A LiveKit Cloud account is required when using the default LiveKit Cloud authentication mode. Run lk cloud auth once to authenticate. If you are running in a self-hosted environment, you can skip this step and pass an ai-coustics SDK key directly instead (see the self-hosted authentication step below).
2

Install the LiveKit CLI

Install the LiveKit CLI tool for your platform.
3

Authenticate the CLI

lk cloud auth
Cloud only. This step links the CLI to your LiveKit Cloud account. If you are running in a self-hosted environment, skip this step.
4

Create a new agent project

lk agent init my-agent --template agent-starter-python
cd my-agent
Node.js only. LiveKit Agents for Node.js requires Node.js 20 or later. The starter project uses pnpm.
5

Add the ai-coustics plugin

uv add livekit-plugins-ai-coustics
6

Install dependencies

uv sync
7

Download model files

uv run src/agent.py download-files
8

Enable speech enhancement

Open your agent entry file (src/agent.py for Python, src/index.ts for Node.js) and add ai-coustics audio enhancement to your session.start() call:
from livekit.plugins import ai_coustics

session = AgentSession(
  vad=ai_coustics.VAD(),  # Add ai-coustics VAD to session setup
  # ...
)

await session.start(
    agent=Assistant(),
    room=ctx.room,
    room_options=room_io.RoomOptions(
        audio_input=room_io.AudioInputOptions(
              # Add ai-coustics audio enhancement to audio input options
              noise_cancellation=ai_coustics.audio_enhancement(
                # - EnhancerModel.QUAIL_VF_L  (best for isolating the foreground speaker)
                # - EnhancerModel.QUAIL_VF_S  (smaller, more efficient version of Quail VF)
                # - EnhancerModel.QUAIL_L     (best for multiple/far-field speakers)
                model=ai_coustics.EnhancerModel.QUAIL_VF_L,
                # auth defaults to Auth.livekit_cloud() - omit it when using LiveKit Cloud.
                # For self-hosted environments, pass your license key explicitly:
                #   auth=ai_coustics.Auth.ai_coustics_api(license_key="YOUR_LICENSE_KEY"),
                # - enhancement_level = 0.5 (conservative, foreground speech is always preserved)
                # - enhancement_level = 0.8 (balanced, optimal word error rate on challenging data)
                # - enhancement_level = 1.0 (aggressive, maximum suppression of interfering speech)
                # More info: https://docs.ai-coustics.com/models/speech-enhancement/speech-enhancement-for-voice-ai-systems
                model_parameters=ai_coustics.ModelParameters(enhancement_level=0.8),
                # VAD Parameters Info: https://docs.ai-coustics.com/models/voice-activity-detection/quail-vad
                vad_settings=ai_coustics.VadSettings(
                  # 0.0 to 1.0 seconds
                  speech_hold_duration=0.03,
                  # 1.0 to 15.0
                  sensitivity=6.0,
                  # 0.0 to 1.0 seconds
                  minimum_speech_duration=0.0,
                )
            ),
        )
    ),
)
Node.js only. If your starter project already has an LLM configured in AgentSession, keep it in place and only add the inputOptions.noiseCancellation block to session.start().
9

Run the agent

uv run python src/agent.py console
Your agent is now running with ai-coustics Quail Voice Focus. For Python, you can start talking to it directly in the console. For Node.js, open the LiveKit Agent Console for your project, start a session, and speak to your agent. The Voice Focus models will elevate the foreground speaker while suppressing both interfering speech and background noise.
10

Voice Focus and Multi-Speaker Support

You can use Quail Voice Focus and Quail for multi-speaker scenarios in this integration. Support for Voice Activity Detection will be added in the future.
11

Self-hosted authentication (optional)

If you are not using LiveKit Cloud, pass your ai-coustics license key directly via the auth parameter:
noise_cancellation=ai_coustics.audio_enhancement(
    model=ai_coustics.EnhancerModel.QUAIL_VF_L,
    auth=ai_coustics.Auth.ai_coustics_api(license_key="YOUR_LICENSE_KEY"),
)
Your license key can be generated on the ai-coustics developer platform.

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Available Models

The LiveKit plugins do not currently have support for loading model files. Instead, they have a limited selection of models embedded in the plugins themselves. The models currently available in the plugins are:
  • Quail L (16 kHz): EnhancerModel.QUAIL_L (Python), EnhancerModel.QuailL (Node.js)
  • Quail Voice Focus 2.1 L (16 kHz): EnhancerModel.QUAIL_VF_L (Python), EnhancerModel.QuailVfL (Node.js)
  • Quail Voice Focus 2.1 S (16 kHz): EnhancerModel.QUAIL_VF_S (Python), EnhancerModel.QuailVfS (Node.js)

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Next Steps

Plugin on PyPI

Discover the LiveKit Python plugin package.

Plugin on npm

Discover the LiveKit Node.js plugin package.

Quail & Voice Focus

Learn about Quail and Voice Focus models for LiveKit.

LiveKit Agents

Learn more about building voice agents with LiveKit.