EmoNet: Speaker-Aware Transformers for Emotion Recognition — and What I’d Build Differently in 2026

# Emotion Recognition AI Has Moved On From Specialized Models A researcher reflects on their old emotion-detection system that once ranked highly in competition, but explains how the field has fundamentally shifted—large language models like ChatGPT have become so capable that custom-built emotion AI systems are no longer the cutting edge. The piece offers practical insight into how quickly AI technology evolves and what approaches actually matter today versus what mattered just a few years ago.