OpenAI, the company behind the popular ChatGPT chatbot, has unveiled a significant update that allows users to engage in two-way voice conversations with ChatGPT.
This feature represents a major advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) technology and offers various applications, from storytelling to settling debates.
OpenAI announced these new features in a blog post, highlighting the versatility of ChatGPT’s voice capabilities.
Users can now request a spoken bedtime story for their family or seek assistance in resolving a dinner table dispute, enhancing the interactive experience with the AI chatbot.
The introduction of voice features in ChatGPT brings it closer in functionality to established voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri.
It enables users to interact with the chatbot through spoken commands and receive spoken responses, creating a more natural and engaging conversation.
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In a demonstration of this update, OpenAI showcased ChatGPT’s ability to generate and narrate a story based on a user’s request, such as “the super-duper sunflower hedgehog named Larry.”
The chatbot can provide narrations in a human-like voice and respond to follow-up questions, demonstrating its conversational depth.
OpenAI explained that ChatGPT’s voice capabilities are made possible by a new text-to-speech model capable of generating lifelike audio from text input and brief samples of speech.
The company collaborated with professional voice actors to develop five distinct voices that can be used to animate the chatbot.
Additionally, OpenAI announced another feature that enables ChatGPT to respond to prompts featuring images.
For instance, users can take a photo of the contents of their refrigerator and ask ChatGPT to suggest meal plans using the available ingredients. Further, the chatbot can focus on specific parts of an image using its “drawing tool” feature within the app.
These updates are scheduled to roll out within the next two weeks for subscribers of ChatGPT’s Plus and Enterprise services. The Plus subscription is priced at $20 per month, while the Enterprise service is exclusively offered to business clients.
OpenAI’s latest enhancements to ChatGPT come amid an ongoing competition among tech giants to integrate AI-powered tools into their core products.
The race for AI advancement was sparked by the public launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. Companies like Google and Amazon have been actively introducing updates to their AI-driven products, aiming to enhance their capabilities and user experiences.