The ChatGPT Advanced Voice mode rollout is starting, and you might be one of the lucky ones

A new leak on X.com seems to confirm that a select group of ChatGPT Plus users will be getting access to Advanced Voice mode today, Tuesday, September 24, 2024.

Advanced Voice mode, which OpenAI demoed back in May this year, allows you to talk to ChatGPT on your smartphone and have a human-like conversation, complete with the ability to interrupt the chatbot if its answers are going on too long. You can also ask it complex questions with the expectation of getting a detailed answer.

The leak appears to be an email from the ChatGPT team telling a user that Advanced Voice mode is “being rolled out in a limited alpha to a select group of users”. Access to the advanced mode alpha on September 24, 2024, it says, “will depend on a variety of factors including but not limited to participation invitations and the specific criteria set for the alpha testing phase.” All of which sounds like a very convoluted way of saying that not everybody can expect to get it.

Advanced Voice mode alpha

Open AI originally stated that “all Plus users will have access by the end of fall,” so we’re not expecting a full rollout of the technology just yet. However, if more Plus users are going to get access to the alpha version, then that’s an encouraging sign that we can expect the full release to happen on schedule.

Being a Plus user of ChatGPT requires a monthly subscription of $20 (£16, AU$30), but gives you access to a range of LLMs, including the new version 01-preview, which launched recently and proved to be much better at solving math problems and reasoning than previous versions of the chatbot.

While OpenAI was initially ahead of its competition when it demoed its Advanced Voice mode for realistic conversations, it has started to lag behind its rivals. Google has already beaten it to launch with Gemini Live, Google’s version of a conversational AI. While Apple has yet to launch Siri 2.0, its enhanced AI assistant, we’ve seen demos and have a time frame for its release , which means we might get it sooner than we think.