OpenAI has delayed its seductive ChatGPT voice assistants

If you’ve been dreaming of spending your summer whispering sweet nothings into the digital ears of one of the seductive ChatGPT voice assistants that OpenAI showed off last month, you’ll have to dream a little longer. On Tuesday, the company announced that its “enhanced voice mode” feature still needs some time “to reach our launch readiness.” The feature will be available to a small group of users to gather feedback, then roll out to all paying ChatGPT customers in the fall.

“We are improving the model’s ability to detect and reject certain content,” OpenAI posted on X. “We are also working to improve the user experience and prepare our infrastructure to scale to millions while maintaining real-time response.”

Voices have been part of ChatGPT since 2023. But last month, OpenAI demonstrated an improved version that sounded so human that it drew comparisons to Samantha, the seductive voice assistant in the 2013 film Herplayed by Scarlett Johansson. Weeks after the presentation, the actress accused OpenAI of copying her voice despite refusing her permission.

OpenAI said it is still figuring out when the new voices (without the Johansson sound) will be available to paying users in the fall. Another feature that lets the voice assistants use your phone’s camera to understand the world around you has also been delayed until then. “Exact timelines will depend on whether we maintain our high safety and reliability standards,” the company said.