Home OpenAI offers ChatGPT voice chat to all free users on mobile

OpenAI offers ChatGPT voice chat to all free users on mobile

With a tap any Android or Apple phone user will be able to talk to ChatGPT.

OpenAI, the company behind the hugely popular AI chatbot,  introduced voice chats on ChatGPT for Android and iOS in September, but initially only for its Plus and Enterprise subscribers. Now, co-founder Greg Brockman has revealed the feature is rolling out to all free users on mobile.

How will ChatGPT voice chat work on the mobile app?

Now, with ChatGPT’s voice chat right in your mobile app, you can dive right into dynamic, spoken dialogues with the chatbot just by hitting the little voice symbol. Your spoken words will be interpreted by the large language model, and you’ll receive a response that eerily mirrors human speech, taking your conversation to a whole new realm of authenticity.

Powered by a text-to-speech model, it generates “human-like audio” and offers five different voices. Despite the wide release announcement, universal access may take time. It’s still unclear if users need to opt in, but paid subscribers can enable it in Settings.

OpenAI claim ChatGPT’s voice chat not only enhances user experience but also caters to a variety of preferences, offering a rich, multimodal experience that goes hand-in-hand with classic text-based interactions. It has the potential to offer a whole new level of engaging and accessible communication.

A hectic week for OpenAI

The $80 billion valued company is going through a chaotic period.

Brockman announced the latest ChatGPT release after resigning as OpenAI’s President, stemming from CEO Sam Altman’s sudden departure on November, 17. The move led to protests and threats of mass resignations from employees. Less than five days later and Altman was back as the CEO. Furthermore, a restructured leadership team was announced, featuring the former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor and the ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

OpenAI has been making significant strides in its field, pioneering progress in areas like reinforcement learning and natural language processing. It’s one of the companies leading the charge into the AI revolution.

But they’re not without critics. The world’s richest man, Elon Musk has called attention to some of the company’s more questionable decisions.

Musk, who recently launched his own chatbot AI Grok, has publicly challenged former board members. In response to Altman’s firing, the billionaire asked OpenAI’s co-founder and board member, Ilya Sutskevar:  “Why did you take such a drastic action? If OpenAI is doing something potentially dangerous to humanity, the world needs to know.”

Featured image from Pexels

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Sam Shedden
Executive Editor

Sam Shedden is an experienced journalist and editor with over a decade in online news. A seasoned technology writer and content strategist, he has contributed to many UK regional and national publications including The Scotsman, inews.co.uk, nationalworld.com, Edinburgh Evening News, The Daily Record and more. Sam has written and edited content for audiences whose interests include media, technology, AI, start-ups and innovation. He's also produced and set-up email newsletters in numerous specialist topics in previous roles and his work on newsletters saw him nominated as Newsletter Hero Of The Year at the UK's Publisher Newsletter Awards 2023. He has worked…

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