Chat with ChatGPT as OpenAI opens up voice feature

Anyone can now talk to ChatGPT, as OpenAI makes voice control available to all users for free. 

The speech feature was announced as the dust settled on a very public boardroom battle at OpenAI, where temporarily ousted CEO Sam Altman has resumed control.

The voice chat feature isn’t on the desktop version of the service yet, so you need to download the app on your phone. To use it, tap the app’s headphone icon and start speaking. The app will then reply to you out loud. You can choose from a list of five male and female American-accented voices in the Speech section of the app settings. 

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ChatGPT’s generative AI software works by answering questions and responding to prompts in natural human language. Up until now, prompts and responses have been written in text, until the voice feature was introduced to paying Plus and Enterprise customers in September. It’s now free to everyone, although when I tried it the app registered my voice and recorded the chat but didn’t respond.

OpenAI announced the availability of voice with a video showing how it works. The person giving the prompt begins by saying, “It’s been a long night…”, likely a reference to the current turmoil happening at the headline-grabbing company.

ChatGPT, what happened at OpenAI?

The company’s board fired CEO Sam Altman on Friday. That prompted President Greg Brockman to quit and saw a majority of staff threatening to follow. Over the weekend, it looked likely both would join Microsoft and a newly formed AI research division.

The boardroom coup has decisively failed, with Altman and Brockman now back in charge. Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, which is closely tied to OpenAI with its ChatGPT-powered Bing and Copilot AIs, is reportedly looking for a seat on the board in future.

Despite the in-fighting, new features keep rolling out for ChatGPT.

Last week, OpenAI announced the ability to make your own bots and sell them in an upcoming app store. On the voice front, OpenAI is also working with Spotify to translate podcasts into different languages while apparently still keeping the host’s voice and vocal character.