Update customers about high-latency operations - > Send Message Delay

Optimize audio clarity - > Sensitivity

Send Message Delay controls when a voice agent presents a latency message during a long-running operation. Microsoft defines this setting as the period the agent waits after a background operation begins before communicating the configured latency message. It is therefore the appropriate control when customers must be kept informed while an operation takes longer than expected.

Sensitivity governs how aggressively the voice agent distinguishes spoken input from environmental noise. Microsoft specifically documents that lower sensitivity is appropriate for noisy environments, public spaces, or hands-free scenarios, while higher sensitivity is more suitable for quiet environments and soft-spoken callers. Tuning sensitivity therefore directly affects practical speech clarity and recognition reliability.

Speech detection timeout and speech recognition timeout address different timing concerns. They determine how long the voice agent waits for speech to begin or how long it allows input after the caller starts speaking; they do not control latency notifications or the balance between speech and background noise.

Study Guide reference: Configure agents and AI capabilities - > Configure voice agents - > Configure voice optimization settings, latency messaging, and speech recognition behavior.