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Labeling speech by hand, for example the speaker’s age group or what they are doing in a call, is slow. With Tazo you can ask those questions about the audio itself, with no transcription step. You can use probabilities to determine which labels to trust and which to ask a second reviewer for their opinion. In this cookbook we will attempt to build an annotation tool. It takes a WAV clip and returns one label per question, with a flag when a person should review the clip. It uses the Tazo Python SDK and asks 3 questions:

One question per request

Tazo Large answers one choice question per request, so each annotation is its own call on the same clip. The three calls run in parallel. Each question lists its options as a criteria map from an option ID to a description. The description is what Tazo reads, so make options clearly different and describe each one in plain language. Every question also gets a NO_TOOL option, so Tazo can say that nothing fits when the clip is silent or unclear instead of guessing.

Setup

Clips must be WAV files of at most 30 seconds. The SDK accepts a path, bytes or a file object.

Define the questions

Decide when a label needs review

A label is trusted only when the winner is not NO_TOOL, has at least 65% probability, and leads the runner-up by at least 12 points. A close call, such as 40% against 38%, has a reasonable top confidence but a small lead, so the lead is checked as well.

Annotate a clip

annotate asks one question. profile_clip asks every question about the same clip in parallel and flags the clip when any label is uncertain.
Run it:
The result looks like this. The shape is real; the numbers are illustrative.
Age is the hard one: it is a judgment from the voice alone, so its confidence is often low, which is exactly what the review flag is for.

Build on it

  • Add an annotation. Add an entry to QUESTIONS with a question and 2 to 20 options. Nothing else changes.
  • Keep corrections. Store the Tazo label and the reviewer’s correction side by side, and export the corrected one.
  • Tune the gate. Raise MIN_CONFIDENCE to send more clips to review while you build trust in the labels.

Limitations

  • Tazo only chooses among the options you give it. Clear, distinct options matter more than a clever question.
  • Age and gender are estimates from the voice alone, not facts. Use them with human review.
  • The 65% and 12-point thresholds are starting points, not calibrated guarantees.
  • A request has a text budget for the state, question and options together. If a question with many options is rejected as too long, shorten the descriptions.