ChatGPT‘s impressive new Advanced Voice Mode, which it demoed back in May during the launch of GPT-4o, is now rolling out to some Plus subscribers. But a new OpenAI comment suggests that a full release for the feature may not happen until the end of the year.
As noted on Reddit’s ChatGPT subreddit, a new message is appearing in the ChatGPT app (below) stating that “our rollout of Advanced Voice Mode has started”. OpenAI says that “we’re slowly enrolling users in the alpha to ensure the quality of the experience”.
While that’s promising news for those who’ve been waiting to chat to what could be the world’s smartest voice assistant, there’s also a slight sting at the end of the note. It states that “all Plus users will have access by the end of fall”, which is a subtle difference from previous guidance that it would roll out for everyone “in the fall”.
Technically, that means the new feature’s full rollout – which will let you create customizable character voices or act as a live translator – should happen somewhere between late September and December 24. It could be earlier if OpenAI is referring to a meteorological ‘fall’, but ‘by the end of 2024’ is perhaps more realistic guidance for a release to all Plus subscribers.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do to get the feature aside from waiting –OpenAI says “we’ll let you know as soon as you’re in”. Still, with some Plus subscribers claiming that they now have the feature, we should start to see some real-world demos to whet our appetites and see what the next-gen version of ChatGPT’s voice mode is capable of.
Why the long wait?
OpenAI previously hinted in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that its delayed rollout of ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode was for safety reasons, as it was “improving the model’s ability to detect and refuse certain content”.
But another factor is also scaling the feature while maintaining the near-instantaneous response times we’ve seen in OpenAI’s demos. It previously stated that it was spending extra time to work on “improving the user experience and preparing our infrastructure to scale to millions while maintaining real-time responses”.
There was always the possibility for delays with OpenAI stating that “exact timelines depend on meeting our high safety and reliability bar”. But with some Plus users stating that they now have the feature, those kinks will hopefully be ironed out in the next few weeks in the run-up to a full launch.
Another potential reason for the delay is that OpenAI’s resources may well be stretched right now, as it’s also just announced the beta launch of SearchGPT. You can now join the waitlist for the Google-rivaling search engine, but as it’s only at a “prototype” stage a full release will likely come after ChatGPT’s advanced voice mode.
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mark.wilson@futurenet.com (Mark Wilson)
