Anika Begay
I’m leaving ChatGPT Advanced voice mode is active as I write this article as an ambient AI companion. Every now and then, I ask it to provide a synonym for an overused word or a piece of encouragement. After about half an hour, the chatbot breaks our silence and starts speaking to me in Spanish, unprompted. I chuckle a little and ask what’s going on. “Just a little change? Gotta keep things interesting,” ChatGPT says, now back in English.
While testing Advanced Voice mode as part of the first alpha, my interactions with ChatGPT’s new audio feature were fun, messy, and surprisingly varied, though it’s worth noting that the features I had access to were only half of what OpenAI demonstrated when it launched the GPT-4o model in May. The visuals we saw in the live-streamed demo are now planned for a later release, and the improved Sky voice, which His Actress Scarlett Johanssen has been rejected, removed from Enhanced Voice Mode, and is no longer an option for users.
So what’s the current mood? Right now, Advanced Voice Mode is reminiscent of when the original text-based ChatGPT came out in late 2022. Sometimes it leads to unimpressive dead ends or devolves into empty AI platitudes. But other times, the low-latency conversations work in a way that Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa never could for me, and I feel compelled to keep chatting for fun. It’s the kind of AI tool you’ll show your relatives over the holidays for a laugh.
OpenAI gave some WIRED reporters access to the feature a week after its initial announcement, but pulled it the next morning, citing security concerns. Two months later, OpenAI quietly launched Advanced Voice Mode to a small group of users and released the GPT-4o system brief, a technical document outlining its red-teaming efforts, what the company considers security risks, and the mitigations the company has taken to reduce the damage.
Curious to try it for yourself? Here’s what you need to know about the wider rollout of Advanced Voice Mode, and my first impressions of ChatGPT’s new voice feature, to help you get started.
So when will the full launch happen?
OpenAI released an audio-only Advanced Voice Mode to some ChatGPT Plus users in late July, and the alpha group still appears relatively small. The company plans to enable it for all subscribers later this fall. OpenAI spokesperson Niko Felix didn’t share further details when asked about the release timeline.
Screen and video sharing were a key part of the original demo, but are not available in this alpha test. OpenAI plans to add those features later, but it’s unclear when that will happen.
If you are a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, you will receive an email from OpenAI when the advanced voice mode is available to you. Once it is on your account, you can switch from Standard AND Advanced at the top of the app screen when ChatGPT voice mode is open. I was able to test the alpha version on an iPhone and a Galaxy Fold.
My first impressions of ChatGPT’s advanced voice mode
After just the first hour of talking, I found myself loving interrupting ChatGPT. It’s not the way you’d talk to a human, but having the new ability to interrupt ChatGPT mid-sentence and request a different version of the output feels like a dynamic improvement and a great feature.
Early adopters who were excited about the original demos may be frustrated to have access to a version of Advanced Voice Mode that’s limited with more guardrails than expected. For example, while generative AI singing was a key component of the launch demos, with whispered lullabies and multiple voices attempting to harmonize, AI serenades are absent from the alpha release.
