DaVoice sues Perplexity over wake-word technology after the companies collaborated

Why it matters

The suit puts a specific pressure point in AI products under scrutiny: the low-power listening layer that wakes an assistant. The heavily redacted complaint leaves the alleged technical overlap unclear, so the case's claims should not be mistaken for proof that Perplexity used DaVoice's technology.

DaVoice, the voice-AI startup co-founded by Ofer Fryman and Helge Voss, sued Perplexity AI in federal court on September 24th, alleging that the search company took trade secrets related to wake-word technology after the two companies collaborated. The complaint describes technology built with DaVoice's source code, inference logic, network architecture, training approaches, training data and know-how, according to Reuters' report.

The filing, DaVoice v. Perplexity AI Inc., No. 3:26-cv-10909, is in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint is heavily redacted. It does not make the precise technology the companies worked on, the Perplexity product involved, or the specific acts DaVoice says amounted to misappropriation clear. The allegations have not been tested in court, and the filing does not establish that Perplexity used DaVoice's technology.

That leaves the central question unusually technical: which part of an always-listening voice system does DaVoice say Perplexity obtained, and how was it used? The publicly available account describes categories of proprietary material, rather than enough detail to assess the alleged overlap. The complaint is the primary record, but its redactions limit what can be concluded from it.

Fryman's second company

Fryman brings experience building software businesses to the dispute. Before DaVoice, he co-founded Syte, a visual-search company for online retailers, with Lihi Pinto Fryman, Idan Pinto and Helge Voss. TechCrunch reported in 2020 that Syte had raised $71 million, including a $30 million Series C and $10 million in debt. Its product helped shoppers find merchandise through images rather than relying solely on text searches.

DaVoice takes on a different technical problem: how software can continuously listen for an activation phrase without sending audio to a remote service. DaVoice's product description says its wake-word models run on-device, activating an assistant when they detect a chosen phrase. The company presents wake-word detection as an entry point to a larger voice stack that also includes speech recognition and speaker identification.

That makes wake-word software a small but consequential layer in a voice interface. It must recognize an intended trigger while avoiding false activations, and it has to do so with limited power and without necessarily streaming audio to the cloud. DaVoice's site says its technology supports custom wake words and multiple development platforms. Those are company descriptions of its product, not findings in the lawsuit.

Perplexity's product mix makes voice a relevant area to watch, but does not connect the allegations to a specific product. Perplexity presents Comet as a browser with an AI assistant, and its own product materials describe voice interactions. The complaint as reported by Reuters does not say that Comet used DaVoice's technology. Nor does it establish whether the collaboration concerned a product now available to users or work that remained internal.

The public record stops short

DaVoice says it has collaborated with companies including Volkswagen and Samsara, an Internet-of-Things company, Reuters reported. The examples point to the range of settings where wake-word systems can matter, from vehicles to connected devices. Reuters' report does not specify the commercial terms or dates of those collaborations, and they do not independently verify DaVoice's claims against Perplexity.

DaVoice also promotes performance figures for its detection technology on its wake-word benchmark page, including a 97% detection rate and fewer than 0.0001 false positives per hour. These are company-presented measurements. They do not establish what the firms evaluated during their collaboration or what technology the complaint says Perplexity took.

DaVoice alleges that Perplexity used information shared under confidentiality agreements; the redactions leave the alleged misuse difficult to assess. The complaint leaves those details largely out of public view, so the lawsuit currently offers a clear account of DaVoice's accusation but a limited basis for judging its technical merits.

DaVoice's lawyers include Davida Brook and Ian Crosby of Susman Godfrey, Reuters reported. The filing identifies the dispute and the broad classes of material at issue; it does not yet show whether the collaboration produced a product, a prototype, or a transfer of technology that Perplexity later used.