A startup wants your voice, not your photo, to prove you are human

A startup called Helix has raised $6 million to build a different way to prove you are a real person online. Instead of a puzzle, a selfie or an ID card, it asks you to speak for about four seconds. Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus is backing the company and will act as an advisor.

What Helix does

Websites have long used CAPTCHA, the click-the-traffic-lights test, to keep out bots. Social media platforms have more recently asked for photos or videos to verify users. Helix wants voice to do that job without collecting sensitive personal information.

Its technology runs on the user's own device and decides whether the speaker is human and roughly how old they are. The company says it works even on an iPhone 13, which keeps the cost of using it low.

Who is behind it

Alex Oberg, Anna Dorofiyenko and Mike Hall founded Helix in 2025. Oberg previously worked at Ticketmaster, where he helped create Verified Fan, a tool meant to keep bots out. The round was led by Chicago Ventures, with several other firms taking part.

Oberg argues that identity online has always relied on stand-ins such as email, phone number and device ID. He says AI will make it harder to tell humans from bots, and that age rules around the world are pushing people to trade privacy for access.

Where it is used

• Zeel, an in-home healthcare provider, uses it to verify providers visiting customers' homes.
• Verifying workers such as cab drivers is another use the company is exploring.
• Helix is running pilots to see if voice can signal conditions such as drunkenness or distress.

What it cannot do

The CEO was open about limits. The technology cannot reliably tell whether someone is lying. It does not identify individual speakers. Helix also says it cannot yet reliably spot AI agents on live phone calls, even though AI-powered fraud on calls is a growing problem.

On privacy, Oberg claims that even if the company stores a voiceprint, a digital record of how a voice sounds, it cannot be used to rebuild a person's voice. That is the company's own claim, and the article does not describe any outside check of it.

What to watch

Age and bot checks may soon ask for your voice instead of your face or ID. Before speaking, ask what the company keeps, for how long, and whether a voiceprint is stored at all. The article does not say when everyday sites might adopt Helix.