Chat GPT’s ‘smartest voice model ever’ is rolling out to everyone today — and GPT-Live-1 gives you more natural conversations without interruptions | Tech Radar
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Chat GPT’s ‘smartest voice model ever’ is rolling out to everyone today — and GPT-Live-1 gives you more natural conversations without interruptions
Open AI’s new GPT-Live models are coming to everybody starting today
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Chat GPT’s new voice mode is rolling out today to everybody, even Free users
It allows for much more natural conversations and won’t interrupt if you stop talking
You’ll be able to do simultaneous translation for the first time ever in Chat GPT
Open AI has upgraded Chat GPT’s voice mode for everybody with two new models that are rolling out globally, starting today.
I listened to the new GPT-Live-1 model in a demo run by Open AI, and it does sound much more natural than Chat GPT’s previous voice model.
The new model aims to address two particular problems with the existing Chat GPT voice mode. Firstly, the previous version just wasn’t as smart as the text version of Chat GPT. Secondly, it tended to interrupt too much. You notice this especially if you go quiet while you’re thinking of a reply — Chat GPT will often fill the gap by talking.
To get around the intelligence problem, the new model actually delegates harder questions to Chat GPT-5.5, then comes back with an answer. It will say things like “let me just check that for you” to let you know it’s doing this, which keeps the flow of conversation feeling natural and doesn’t make it seem like you have to wait too long for an answer.
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Open AI also demonstrated how the new Chat GPT voice mode is quite happy to stop talking and listen if you tell it to, without interrupting. You can simply ask it not to reply until you speak to it directly again, and it will wait.
Of course, this requires you to call it a name, which it doesn’t officially have. In the demonstration I saw, the Open AI employee called it “Chat”, so he said “Hey Chat”, just like you would say “Hey Siri”. In practice that seems to work quite well.
The final new feature of note is simultaneous translation. If you watch world leaders being briefed at places like the United Nations, you’ll see that they have an earpiece through which they receive a simultaneous translation in their own language of whatever the speaker is saying.
Now you can do this with Chat GPT. Say “I’d like you to simultaneously translate whatever I’m saying into [language]”, then start talking, and Chat GPT will provide a live translation as you speak. Seeing this in action was actually quite impressive and I could imagine it being very handy in several real world situations.
All major languages appear to be supported as well.
The new GPT-Live-1 models — there are two, the normal one and a mini version — will start rolling out for all users immediately, but it could take a few days to reach everybody. The smaller GPT-Live-1 mini model will be the default for Free users, while paid users get the full GPT-Live-1 model.
So far, Chat GPT’s voice mode has been a handy tool for when you need to use your hands for something and can’t type, but it’s never been good enough to become the standard way you interact with Chat GPT. Now it looks like Open AI is trying to unlock the ability to use voice as the primary interface to AI, and it’s quite possible that this is the future Open AI is aiming for. Today I think we've all just taken a step closer to it.
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Graham is the Senior Editor for AI at Tech Radar. With over 25 years of experience in both online and print journalism, Graham has worked for various market-leading tech brands including Computeractive, PC Pro, i More, Mac Format, Mac|Life, Maximum PC, and more. He specializes in reporting on everything to do with AI and has appeared on BBC TV shows like BBC One Breakfast and on Radio 4 commenting on the latest trends in tech. Graham has an honors degree in Computer Science and spends his spare time podcasting and blogging.
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