OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look
OpenAI announced it is rolling out Advanced Voice Mode (AVM) to an expanded set of ChatGPT’s paying customers on Tuesday. The audio feature, which makes ChatGPT more natural to speak with, will initially roll out to customers in ChatGPT’s Plus and Teams tiers. Enterprise and Edu customers will start receiving access next week.
As part of the rollout, AVM is getting a revamped design. The feature is now represented by a blue animated sphere, instead of the animated black dots that OpenAI presented during its showcase of the technology in May.
ChatGPT is also getting five new voices that users can try out: Arbor, Maple, Sol, Spruce, and Vale. This brings ChatGPT’s total number of voices to nine (almost as many as Google’s Gemini Live), alongside Breeze, Juniper, Cove, and Ember. You might notice all of these names are inspired by nature, which could be because the whole point of AVM is to make using ChatGPT feel more natural.
One voice missing from this lineup is Sky, the voice OpenAI showcased during its spring update, which led to a legal threat from Scarlett Johansson. The actress, who played an AI system in the feature film “Her,” claimed that Sky’s voice sounded a little too similar to her own. OpenAI promptly took Sky’s voice down, saying it never intended to resemble Johansson’s voice, despite several staff members making references to the movie in tweets at the time.
