OpenAI postpones the launch of its “Voice Mode” until July

(Reuters) – ChatGPT maker OpenAI said on Tuesday that the release of its Voice Mode feature would be delayed by a month to July due to technical issues.

The company had originally planned to make the realistic voice conversation experience available to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users in late June, but said it was postponing it because it needed time to reach the launch standard.

“For example, we are improving the model’s ability to detect and reject certain content. We are also working to improve the user experience and prepare our infrastructure to scale to millions of users while maintaining real-time responses,” OpenAI said in a post on social media platform X.

The feature will initially be made available to a small group of users to gather feedback and will be made available to all Plus users in the fall, subject to safety and reliability testing, the company said.

OpenAI is also working on introducing new video and screen sharing features.

In May, the company announced the release of a new AI model called GPT-4o that can have realistic voice conversations and interact via text and images, the latest move by the company to stay ahead in the race for dominance in emerging AI technologies.

The new audio features allow users to talk to ChatGPT and receive real-time responses without delay, as well as pause ChatGPT while speaking – both hallmarks of realistic conversations that have been challenging for AI voice assistants.

(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Pooja Desai)