OpenAI has decided to grant all ChatGPT users on its Free tier a 10-minute-a-month preview of its Advanced Voice mode, and if you’ve got the ChatGPT app on your phone you can try it right now.
Usually only available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers, Advanced Voice mode gives you the ability to talk to ChatGPT on your smartphone and get it to talk back to you in a voice of your choosing. You can ask it pretty much anything within reason and get a human-like response. In many ways, it’s the natural evolution of the chatbot into something that feels even more futuristic.
So long, Scarlett
It feels like we're now a long way from the launch of ChatGPT Advanced Voice mode, back in May this year, when the actress Scarlett Johansson went to war with OpenAI over the use of its voice called Sky, which sounded very much like her voice from the movie Her, in which she played an AI-powered assistant.
OpenAI denied claims that it had copied her voice. A statement from CEO, Sam Altman, on May 20, 2024 read: “The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson's, and it was never intended to resemble hers. We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson. Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better.”
Even though your time is limited, you get access to all the features of Advanced Voice mode for those 10 glorious minutes, including the ability to choose a voice. In the current version of Advanced Voice mode you’ll find there are nine different voices to choose between, which have different qualities: Sol, Juniper, Vale, Spruce, Breeze, Arbor, Cove, Maple, and Ember.
Advanced Voice mode is a real step up from the previous standard voice mode that you’d find on ChatGPT – it can sense and respond to humor and you can interrupt it at any time while it's talking. Interestingly, once you’ve chosen a voice you can’t ask ChatGPT to then change to another voice. Instead, you have to go into Settings, which you get to by tapping on your name at the bottom of the screen and scrolling down until you find Voice and tapping on it.
How to know you’ve got Advanced Voice mode
It’s hard to miss Advanced Voice mode, in the iOS or Android app you’ll see a message pop up in the prompt window informing you that you have access to Advanced Voice mode and pointing to a new icon to the far right. Simply tap it to begin. The first time you access it you’ll be asked to choose a voice and once you’ve done that you’re good to go.
When you see a glowing blue orb, somewhat reminiscent of a palantír from Lord of the Rings, you know that ChatGPT is listening and you can start having a conversation - ask it what you should have for lunch today, or where would be a good place to go on a vacation. You’ll discover that the conversation feels startlingly real.
