Add Pause or Read Slowly

Control speech pacing by adding dashes to slow down your UponAI agent at specific points.

You can adjust the overall voice speed in agent settings, but sometimes you only want to slow down at certain points — like when reading a phone number or address. Do this by prompting the LLM to include dashes between words or digits.

Short Pauses

Add a single - (space-dash-space) between items to slow the agent down:

The number is 2 - 1 - 3 - 4

The spaces around the dash are required. A dash without surrounding spaces will not produce a pause.

Long Pauses

For a longer pause, chain multiple dashes with double spaces between them:

The number is 2 - - - - 1 - - - - 3

Use double spaces between the dashes for longer pauses to work correctly.

Tip: Use in Prompts

Instruct the LLM to format output with dashes when reading sensitive data:

When reading a phone number, format each digit group separated by " - " dashes.
Example: 415-892-3245 → "four one five - eight nine two - three two four five"