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Audio

Interruptibility

Give one obvious gesture to pause or cancel speech, generation, or an ambient agent mid-turn. If people cannot stop it, they will not start it again.

Interactive demo

Assistant speaking

Live

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Overview

How might we design interruptibility so people can trust and act on AI output?

When to use

  • Essential for voice assistants, long-running AI agents, and streaming responses where users need a single, reliable gesture to pause, cancel, or redirect the system mid-execution.

When to skip

  • Operations that are unsafe to interrupt mid-write without rollback (disable interrupt or make it transactional).
  • Instant actions that finish before a cancel target can be hit.
  • Read-only playback where pause is enough and cancel is meaningless.

Rules

  • No stop control during long generations.

  • Cancel that leaves partial side effects applied.

  • Tiny hit targets during voice mode.

  • Requiring a deep menu to stop an agent.

Evidence

ProductImplementation
ChatGPT VoiceTap/interrupt to stop speaking or listening.
SiriTap or speak cancel to halt the assistant.
AlexaStop commands during skills and speech.
Cursor AgentStop/pause controls during agent execution.

FAQ

What makes interruptibility feel trustworthy?

An always-visible stop, immediate halt of new side effects, and a clear leftover state (partial text kept or discarded).

Interrupt vs undo?

Interrupt stops in-progress work. Undo reverses completed work. Agents often need both.

Where should the control live?

Replace send with stop during generation, and keep a floating stop in voice/agent modes.

What about keyboard and accessibility?

Support Escape or an equivalent, and announce state changes to assistive tech.