You can now talk to ChatGPT for free

ChatGPT is great and all; you type your query and get text-based responses. However, some people would find that to be pretty impersonal. What if you could actually speak to ChatGPT? Well, paying customers have had the ability to do that since September. Now, it’s the little guy’s turn; GPT voice is now available for free.

In case you didn’t know, OpenAI has been working on adding a voice to ChatGPT. This way, people could have access to a voice assistant that’s powered by the same LLM writing everyone’s college essays. This feature is now available in the Android and iOS apps, so you can access it now. If you haven’t downloaded the app, you can download it from your respective app store. If you already have the app, just update it.

GPT Voice is now free to use

OpenAI offered this functionality for quite some time, but it was locked behind a paywall. Using this feature is pretty straightforward. Just pretend that ChatGPT became sentient, developed one of four relaxing voices, and started talking to you. In the interface, you’ll see a little headphones icon next to the text field. When you tap on it, you’ll see the screen change.

If this is your first time, you’ll go through a one-time setup process. You’ll grant the app access to your microphone, accept all of the relevant terms of service, and choose which voice you want GPT to have.

After that, you’ll see a large dot appear on the screen. That’s the beautiful face of ChatGPT. You’ll see this dot morph along depending on what it’s doing. The dot will remain circular when it’s listening to you. When it’s “thinking” (developing the response), you’ll see it turn into a thought bubble. Lastly, you’ll see it turn into a waveform when it’s responding to you.

It’s good to see that things at OpenAI are starting to return to normal after the hectic weekend it just had. If you want to know more about that, read about the OpenAI situation.