OpenAI made headlines due to the upheaval following Sam Altman’s removal as CEO last Friday. Subsequently, a vast majority of OpenAI staff threatened to resign, calling for the board’s resignation. In response, the AI company appointed former Twitch leader Emmett Shear as the new CEO, while Altman assumed a role leading AI research at Microsoft. However, after discussions with the OpenAI board, Altman has now agreed to resume his position as the CEO of the company he co-founded.
Amidst this turmoil, OpenAI continued to enhance its flagship product. The company declared on Wednesday that ChatGPT with voice is now accessible to all users of the app for free. This voice conversation feature was initially introduced to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise subscribers.
OpenAI, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), announced the integration of voice support into the ChatGPT app for all free users. The post encouraged users to download the app on their phones and initiate a conversation by tapping the headphones icon. Accompanying the announcement was a video showcasing the feature in action, engaging in a conversation with a ChatGPT user.
ChatGPT with voice is now available to all free users. Download the app on your phone and tap the headphones icon to start a conversation.
Sound on 🔊 pic.twitter.com/c5sCFDAWU6
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) November 21, 2023
IchieTech can verify that voice support has indeed been introduced to the ChatGPT app, available on both iOS and Android smartphones. The feature is represented by a headphone icon located at the bottom right of the chat window. Upon tapping the icon, users are guided through an introduction screen for ‘Chat with voice,’ providing insights into the voice conversation feature.
The introduction screen clarifies that all voice chats will be saved as transcriptions in the chat history, with audio clips of conversations not being stored. Additionally, the app automatically detects the language, and users can specify a preferred language in Settings for more accurate voice detection.
Users can then choose from five available voices for the feature after granting microphone permission. With the ‘Chat with voice’ feature activated, users can engage in seamless spoken conversations with ChatGPT. It’s worth noting that users on the free plan may not receive real-time updates, similar to voice assistants like Siri or Google Assistant, as the app is limited to accessing available data until January 2022.
Voice conversation was initially introduced to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise members in September. At that time, OpenAI highlighted its collaboration with professional voice actors to deliver this new feature. The ‘chat with voice’ feature on the ChatGPT app responds to queries by converting spoken input into text understandable by the chatbot. The responses are then transformed into audio using the company’s text-to-speech (TTS) technology.
For ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise users, additional functionality includes web browsing and real-time data retrieval beyond the information cutoff date. OpenAI has expressed its intention to expand this feature to all users in the near future.
