The New GPT-Voice is a New AI Conversation


πŸ“Š β€œI honestly think ChatGPT Voice is one of the most important technology advancements of our lives.” - Alex Finn

Hello Reader,

If you tried ChatGPT Voice before, and you were unimpressed, try it again.

The previous Voice experience was interesting, but awkward. It interrupted pauses. It misread the end of a sentence. It responded too quickly when you were still gathering your thoughts.

Talking to it felt like you had to manage an over-caffeinated friend, who was too enthusiastic to contribute, desperate to finish your sentences.

The new ChatGPT Voice is powered by GPT-Live. OpenAI says it has been designed for more natural conversations, smarter answers, better listening, and visual responses. You can interrupt it, pause to think, ask it to slow down, or tell it to wait until you are ready for a response.

This changes the kinds of conversations you can have.

πŸ’‘ Pro Tip: Pick a Different Voice

Here is my practical recommendation:

Choose a different voice from the one you used before.

OpenAI has remastered the nine voices available in ChatGPT. You can change your selection under Settings β†’ Voice.

Changing the sound of the voice creates a clean mental break between your previous experience and this one.

We build relationships with voices. Those relationships grow over time, and any previous frustration you've had with voice mode should be cleansed. The quickest way around context rot is a fresh start.

A different voice makes you pay attention again.

On your mobile phone, update the ChatGPT app before testing it. If you use ChatGPT in a browser, refresh the page. Availability can depend on your plan, region, workspace, and app version, because GPT-Live may still be rolling out as you read this.

Press the big black Voice Mode button.

πŸ€– Three Conversations to Start with GPT-Voice

Go for a walk, or a drive. Start a new session in ChatGPT, press the Voice Mode button, and narrate one of the following prompts:

  1. Ask me questions one at a time about my plan for the day ahead. Help me identify three important priorities, put them in the right order, and decide what kind of day this needs to be.
  2. Help me plan my day conversationally. I may interrupt or change direction. Keep up, adapt, and bring me back to my three most important priorities.
  3. I’m going to think out loud for a few minutes. Don’t interrupt me. When I say β€˜your turn,’ summarise what you heard and ask me one sharp question.

πŸ” The quality of the conversation still depends on the human operator.

You can describe the role you want ChatGPT to play. You can control the pace. You can recognise a shallow question and ask for a better one.

Anything that dissatisfies you about your conversation - that's a clue. Any friction you encounter can help you articulate what you would prefer.

You can redirect the conversation when it wanders.

These are coaching skills.

As GPT-Voice improves, learning to coach an AI through a conversation will become as useful as learning to write a good prompt.

So, here is your experiment for this week:

  1. Update ChatGPT.
  2. Select a different voice.
  3. Choose one of the conversation starters above.
  4. Talk for at least 15 minutes. (Set a timer, or write down your goal time to stop.)

If you tried Voice before and got bored, try it again. This is an all-new experience, and I encourage you to try GPT-Voice.

My recent hikes with headphones have been very fruitful.

If you want to practice these kinds of techniques with a community of AI operators, membership in the AI Campus is now $19 per month. Inside the AI Campus, we explore practical ways to use AI for clearer thinking, stronger work, and better systems.

πŸ“” How to use Voice Mode:

video preview​

[2:00]

πŸ“° New AI News This Week

  • 1,350 employees of frontier AI companies signed an open letter, Pacing the Frontier, requesting AI regulation.
  • Alibaba released Qwen3.8-Max, a Chinese open-source model as large and competent as Moonshot AI's Kimi K3
  • OpenAI's unreleased model Astra solved 10 open mathematics problems previously unsolved by humans

πŸ‘“ What I’m Reading

  • ​The AI Future is for Everyone by Mark Zuckerberg in the Washington Post - "As everyone gains more powerful tools, each person will become more capable of shaping the future, not less."
  • ​Magnifica Humanitas by Pope Leo XIV - "In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human." ... "I too have reaffirmed that the Church 'does not claim to possess a monopoly on truth,' [17] because truth is not a territory to be defended, but a good to be shared."

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