OpenAI Begins Rolling Out Advanced Voice Mode To Select ChatGPT Plus Users After Scarlett Johansson Fiasco

OpenAI announced the rollout of its advanced Voice Mode to a select group of ChatGPT Plus users, promising more natural, real-time conversations and emotional responsiveness.

What Happened: On Thursday, OpenAI revealed that it has begun the rollout of its advanced Voice Mode to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users. The company stated that the new feature offers more natural, real-time conversations, allows users to interrupt at any time, and senses and responds to the user’s emotions.

The users in the alpha stage will receive an email with instructions and a message in their mobile app. OpenAI plans to add more people on a rolling basis and aims for all Plus users to have access by fall. The company also mentioned that video and screen-sharing capabilities will be launched soon.

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OpenAI has been working to reinforce the safety and quality of voice conversations as they prepare to bring this frontier technology to millions of people. They tested GPT-4o’s voice capabilities with over 100 external red teamers across 45 languages and have trained the model to speak only in the four preset voices.

Why It Matters: This announcement comes a month after OpenAI decided to postpone the launch of its voice assistant feature for ChatGPT, citing the need to address safety issues. The company needed an additional month to improve the model's ability to detect and refuse certain content, enhance the user experience, and prepare its infrastructure for scaling to millions of users while maintaining real-time responses.

Earlier, OpenAI faced controversy when actress Scarlett Johansson hired legal counsel against the company for allegedly replicating her voice using AI technology.

Moreover, Microsoft Corp. MSFT recently integrated OpenAI models into its Azure cloud platform, showcasing the increasing adoption and integration of OpenAI’s advanced models in various industries.

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This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Pooja Rajkumari