OpenAI's voice mode rolling out to all ChatGPT subscribers – here's who gets it first

OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode, one of the most highly anticipated features of OpenAI’s Spring Launch event, is now finally out of alpha and available to all ChatGPT Plus and Team users. 

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On Tuesday, OpenAI announced that it’s started to roll out its Advanced Voice Mode to ChatGPT Plus and Team users, offering them a smarter voice assistant that can be interrupted and respond to their emotions. The rollout will also feature five new voices — Arbor, Maple, Sol, Spruce, and Vale — available in both Standard and Advanced Voice Mode. 

OpenAI shares that the rollout to ChatGPT Plus and Team users will be gradual, with rollout out to Enterprise and Edu tiers coming next week. Users will know if they have been given access from a pop-up message next to the Voice Mode option within the ChatGPT interface. 

Since the release of the alpha in July, OpenAI has applied those to improve the Advanced Voice Mode, giving it improved accents in foreign languages and better conversation speed and smoothness. The Advanced Voice Mode also has a different look, now represented by an animated blue sphere. 

To make the experience even more tailored to the user, the Advanced Voice Mode can now use Custom Instructions and Memory, which allow it to consider specific user-shared or designated criteria when producing a response. 

As with the Alpha, users will not be able to access Voice Mode’s multimodal capabilities, including assisting with content on users’ screens and using the user’s phone camera as context for a response, as seen in the demo video below. 

OpenAI tested the voice capabilities with 100+ external red teamers across 45 languages to ensure the model’s safety. In August, the startup published its GPT-4o System Card, a thorough report delineating the LLM’s safety based on risk evaluations according to OpenAI’s Preparedness Framework, external red-teaming, and more, including the Advanced Voice Mode. 

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You can become a ChatGPT Plus subscriber for $20 per month. Other membership perks include advanced data analysis features, unlimited image generation, five times more messages for GPT-4o, and the ability to create custom GPTs. 

One week after OpenAI unveiled this feature in May, Google unveiled a similar feature called Gemini Live. This feature is also a conversational voice assistant supported by LLMs to improve the understanding and flow of a conversation. Earlier this month, Google made Gemini Live available for free to all Android users, so if you have an Android and want to experience this type of assistant, you may not need to shell out the ChatGPT Plus subscription.