🎙️ Building CoHost.AI – An AI Voice Companion for Twitch Streams
I like messing around with AI. I thought it'd be fun to build something dumb, simple, and interactive — something my chat could play with too.
So I built CoHost.AI.
🎯 What It Does
It listens to either:
- 🎤 My mic (using push-to-talk), or
- 💬 Twitch chat messages (via channel point redemptions)
Then it:
- Sends the message to a local LLM (using Ollama)
- Gets a response from the AI
- Converts that to speech (with Google Cloud TTS)
- Plays it back through OBS
- Shows a character on screen while it's talking, then hides it again when done
That's it. It's not a VTuber. It's not a chatbot. It's just a reactive stream gremlin that says dumb stuff in an AI voice — and I love it.
🧰 Tech Stack (The Short Version)
| Component | What it does |
|---|---|
| Python | All core logic |
| Ollama | Local LLM inference |
| Google Cloud TTS | Converts text to speech |
| OBS Studio | Plays audio + toggles character |
| Streamer.bot | Captures chat redemptions via UDP |
| SpeechRecognition | Push-to-talk mic input |
OBS uses WebSockets to toggle visibility on a character source when the bot talks. With the OBS Move plugin, animations can be added to the character. Works great live.
🔧 How It Works
🎤 or 💬 → Python → Ollama → Google TTS → OBS + Audio Out
Simple flow: You talk or chat redeems → response is generated → it talks → character appears → disappears. Done.
🧠 Custom Personality
There's a system_prompt.txt file where you define the AI's tone. You can make it sassy, sweet, helpful, or a complete menace.
I use mine to keep responses short, stream-appropriate, and kinda sarcastic.
🚧 Why I Built It
Mostly for fun. Partially to mess with AI and TTS. But also because chat interactions are one of the best parts of streaming, and this gave them a new way to get involved.
Plus it's hilarious when the bot roasts someone or says something weird that becomes a running joke.
⚙️ Setup
Quick start:
- Clone the repo → GitHub
- Set up Python, Ollama, and Google Cloud
- Configure
.env - Run it with
python run.py - Push-to-talk or redeem a chat message → bot replies
🎬 Try It
Links:
👉 GitHub Repository
🎮 See it live on Twitch
💭 Final Thoughts
CoHost.AI doesn't do everything. It just listens, replies, and appears on screen. But it makes my stream more fun, and that's all I wanted.
If you're into AI stuff, stream tech, or just want to build something weird and entertaining — feel free to fork it, break it, or make it yours.
That's the fun of it.