🌟 OpenAI is fine-tuning the future of AI chats — again. On Monday, the company rolled out an update to its Advanced Voice Mode in ChatGPT, with an ambitious goal: make your conversations with AI feel less robotic, more human, and a lot less like you’re being cut off mid-thought.
In a short but snappy video shared to OpenAI’s social feeds, post-training researcher Manuka Stratta teased these personality upgrades — and yes, the changes are already in motion.
One of the key pain points being addressed? That annoying habit AI assistants have of chiming in the second you pause for a breath or moment of reflection. With the revamped Voice Mode, even free-tier ChatGPT users now get the space to think — uninterrupted.
But paying subscribers get even more icing on the AI cake: responses that are smoother, smarter, and sparking with a bit more charm. OpenAI’s premium voice assistant is now described as “more direct, engaging, concise, specific, and creative” — basically, your dream podcast co-host.
Timing-wise, this adjustment couldn’t be more crucial. The race for AI voice dominance is heating up faster than a GPU in July. Hot startup Sesame (yes, backed by Andreessen Horowitz and founded by Oculus’ Brendan Iribe) just set the bar higher with their natural-sounding AIs, Maya and Miles — and they went viral doing it.
Meanwhile, tech giants like Amazon are revamping Alexa with large language models of their own. The stakes? Sky high. The winner? TBD.
But if OpenAI’s assistant gets this good at reading the room (and your pauses), we might just be talking to machines like old friends sooner than we thought.