OpenAI announced updates to its Advanced Voice Mode, an AI voice feature designed for real-time conversations in ChatGPT, aiming to enhance the assistant’s personality and reduce interruptions. Manuka Stratta, a post-training researcher at OpenAI, shared the details in a video on the company’s official social media platforms.
The latest update seeks to resolve a common issue with AI voice assistants that tend to interrupt users during pauses for thought or deep breaths. Now, free ChatGPT users can enjoy an upgraded version of Advanced Voice Mode, which allows them to pause without being interrupted while conversing with the AI. Meanwhile, subscribers to OpenAI’s paid tiers—such as Plus, Teams, Edu, Business, and Pro—will experience fewer interruptions and a more engaging personality from the voice assistant
. An OpenAI representative informed TechCrunch that the new AI voice assistant for paying users is “more direct, engaging, concise, specific, and creative in its responses.”
These enhancements to Advanced Voice Mode come at a time of heightened competition in the AI voice assistant market. For instance, Sesame, a startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz and co-founded by Oculus’s Brendan Iribe, has recently gained attention for its lifelike AI voice assistants, Maya and Miles. Additionally, major companies like Amazon are making strides in this area, preparing to launch their LLM-powered version of Alexa
