Key takeaways
- Native Bedrock integration provides enterprise-grade security, compliance, and unified billing for AWS customers
- Industry-leading price performance with unified speech understanding and generation in a single model
- Nova 2 Sonic upgrade adds polyglot voices, expanded language support, and 1M token context window
FAQ
What is AWS Nova 2 Sonic?
Amazon Nova Sonic is a speech-to-speech foundation model that unifies speech understanding and generation to enable human-like voice conversations in AI applications, available through Amazon Bedrock.
How much does Nova 2 Sonic cost?
Nova 2 Sonic costs $0.0034/1K speech input tokens, $0.0136/1K speech output tokens (~$0.017/min). Approximately 80% cheaper than OpenAI Realtime API.
How does Nova 2 Sonic differ from Nova Sonic?
Nova 2 Sonic (December 2025) adds polyglot voices, expanded language support, and a 1M token context window for longer conversations.
Executive Summary
Amazon Nova Sonic is AWS's native speech-to-speech foundation model, available through Amazon Bedrock. It unifies speech understanding and generation into a single model, enabling human-like voice conversations with low latency and industry-leading price performance. Nova 2 Sonic (December 2025) adds polyglot voices and a 1M token context window.
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Company | Amazon Web Services |
| Launched | April 2025 (Nova Sonic), December 2025 (Nova 2 Sonic) |
| Platform | Amazon Bedrock |
| Context Window | 1M tokens (Nova 2 Sonic) |
| Region | US East (N. Virginia) initially, expanding |
Product Overview
Nova Sonic is part of Amazon's Nova family of foundation models, designed specifically for conversational AI applications. The model handles speech understanding and generation in a unified architecture, eliminating the latency and complexity of traditional ASR→LLM→TTS pipelines.
Key applications include customer service automation, virtual assistants, and interactive voice response (IVR) systems.
Key Capabilities
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| Unified Speech Model | Single model for understanding and generation |
| Low Latency | Optimized for real-time conversational AI |
| Polyglot Voices | Multiple languages and accents (Nova 2) |
| 1M Context Window | Extended conversations without context loss |
| Tool Invocation | Function calling for task completion |
| Bedrock Integration | Native AWS security, compliance, billing |
Product Editions
| Edition | Description | Availability |
|---|---|---|
| Nova Sonic | Base speech-to-speech model | GA (April 2025) |
| Nova 2 Sonic | Enhanced with polyglot voices, 1M context | GA (December 2025) |
Technical Architecture
Nova Sonic operates within the Amazon Bedrock infrastructure, providing enterprise-grade security and scalability. The model receives audio input and generates audio output directly, with optional text output for transcription and tool calling.
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Amazon Bedrock │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Nova Sonic Model │ │
│ │ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────────────┐ │ │
│ │ │ Speech │ │ Speech │ │ │
│ │ │ Input │ → │ Output │ │ │
│ │ └──────────┘ └──────────────────┘ │ │
│ │ ↓ ↑ │ │
│ │ ┌──────────────────────────────────┐│ │
│ │ │ Text Tokens (tools, history) ││ │
│ │ └──────────────────────────────────┘│ │
│ └────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ IAM, VPC, CloudWatch, Cost Management │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Integration Options
| Integration | Description |
|---|---|
| Bedrock API | Direct API access with IAM authentication |
| Vonage | Telephony integration for voice calls |
| Connect | Amazon Connect contact center integration |
| Lex | Conversational interface integration |
Strengths
- Bedrock-native — Enterprise security, IAM, VPC, compliance certifications included
- Unified billing — Single AWS bill with existing enterprise agreements
- Price performance — Industry-leading cost efficiency for speech-to-speech
- 1M context window — Long conversations without context loss (Nova 2)
- Polyglot support — Multiple languages and accents in single model
- Tool invocation — Native function calling for task completion
- AWS ecosystem — Integrates with Connect, Lex, Lambda, and other AWS services
Cautions
- AWS lock-in — Tightly coupled to Bedrock; no self-hosting or multi-cloud
- Regional availability — Initially US East only; expanding but limited vs global providers
- Newer entrant — Less mature than OpenAI Realtime API; smaller ecosystem
- Documentation gaps — Less community content and examples than competitors
- Limited voices — Fewer voice options than ElevenLabs
- No MCP support — Uses AWS-native tool calling, not open MCP protocol
Pricing & Licensing
Nova 2 Sonic is priced through Amazon Bedrock with token-based billing:
| Component | Rate |
|---|---|
| Speech Input | $0.0034 / 1K tokens |
| Speech Output | $0.0136 / 1K tokens |
| Text Input | $0.00006 / 1K tokens |
| Text Output | $0.00024 / 1K tokens |
Estimated per-minute cost: ~$0.017/min (speech I/O combined)
Cost comparison:
- ~80% cheaper than OpenAI Realtime API (~$0.15-0.20/min)
- Competitive with Retell AI (~$0.07/min + provider costs)
- More expensive than Deepgram Aura TTS (but Nova is full S2S)
Pricing Tiers:
- Standard — Consistent performance at regular rates
- Priority — Premium tier for mission-critical applications
- Flex — Discounted rates for latency-tolerant workloads
Competitive Positioning
Direct Competitors
| Competitor | Differentiation |
|---|---|
| OpenAI Realtime API | OpenAI has better instruction following and MCP support; Nova Sonic has Bedrock integration and potentially lower costs |
| ElevenLabs | ElevenLabs has superior voice quality and variety; Nova Sonic has enterprise AWS integration |
| Deepgram | Deepgram excels at STT+TTS building blocks; Nova Sonic is end-to-end speech-to-speech |
When to Choose AWS Nova 2 Sonic
- Choose Nova Sonic when: You're already on AWS, need Bedrock compliance, or want unified billing
- Choose OpenAI Realtime when: You need best-in-class instruction following and MCP
- Choose ElevenLabs when: Voice quality and variety are paramount
- Choose LiveKit when: You want open-source flexibility
Ideal Customer Profile
Best fit:
- AWS-native enterprises with existing Bedrock usage
- Organizations requiring AWS compliance certifications (HIPAA, SOC2, FedRAMP)
- Teams wanting unified AWS billing and IAM
- Contact centers using Amazon Connect
- Applications needing long context (1M tokens)
Poor fit:
- Multi-cloud organizations avoiding AWS lock-in
- Teams needing extensive voice variety
- Startups without AWS enterprise agreements
- Use cases requiring MCP protocol support
Viability Assessment
| Factor | Assessment |
|---|---|
| Financial Health | Excellent — AWS is one of the most profitable businesses globally |
| Market Position | Growing — Strong AWS enterprise base, newer in voice AI |
| Innovation Pace | Rapid — Nova 2 Sonic released within 8 months of Nova Sonic |
| Ecosystem | Extensive — Deep AWS service integration |
| Long-term Outlook | Positive — Core to AWS's AI strategy |
Bottom Line
AWS Nova 2 Sonic is the natural choice for AWS-native enterprises building voice AI applications. The Bedrock integration provides enterprise-grade security, compliance, and unified billing that's difficult to replicate with third-party providers. Nova 2 Sonic's 1M context window and polyglot voices make it competitive for complex, multilingual applications.
The trade-off is AWS lock-in and a smaller voice AI ecosystem compared to dedicated providers like ElevenLabs or the OpenAI Realtime API. For organizations already committed to AWS, Nova Sonic reduces complexity. For multi-cloud or voice-quality-focused teams, alternatives may be better fits.
Recommended for: AWS-native enterprises needing compliant, scalable voice AI with unified billing.
Not recommended for: Multi-cloud organizations, teams requiring extensive voice variety, or those prioritizing MCP protocol support.
Research by Ry Walker Research