OpenAI is pushing further into the hotly contested market for personal agents — this time with voice. The company is adding its most advanced voice system to ChatGPT's website and mobile app on Wednesday. OpenAI's release allows users to speak to delegate single and recurring tasks that require multiple steps, a browser, and disparate apps. The company has been rolling out launches ahead of its big OpenAI DevDay event next week.
OpenAI's product lead for ChatGPT voice, Atty Eleti, gave a demo to Business Insider. Only speaking with the app, he had the tool analyze his DoorDash spending, pay $5 to book a pickleball court, and reorganize his calendar.
"In the future, we really imagine people using voice as the primary modality to interact with AI," Eleti said, "and that's kind of our North Star that we're working towards."
Personal AI assistants like Instinct and Meta's Muse are having a moment in Silicon Valley as the industry peddles apps tailored to handle cumbersome internet tasks. OpenAI has many of these capabilities in ChatGPT, though it hasn't yet released a narrower offshoot. This voice tool is a play for the AI-assistant buzz.
In the short term, the improvements make it easier for people to delegate work to ChatGPT by speaking while they're on the go. In the long run, they'll serve OpenAI's hardware ambitions: Bloomberg has reported that the company is building a smart speaker for release in 2027.
Wednesday's release connects OpenAI's voice model, GPT-Live, to AI models that can perform tasks on computers or in browsers, a focus the company maintained before the personal AI agent craze. GPT-Live, which can listen and respond simultaneously, was already turned on for ChatGPT's basic conversational mode and connected to agentic models on the desktop app.
Voice mode, as Eleti sees it, has three main benefits. Speaking is quick and natural — "you can blurt out your thoughts," he said. You can do it with your hands off a device. And it can help you with vocal tasks, like learning a language or practicing a speech. Eleti and his colleagues use it while commuting and on walks, he said.
Eleti said more than 150 million people already use ChatGPT's dictation and voice mode tools. Still, the team faces an uphill battle. Though smart speakers have shown some staying power, offices are still organized around desktop computers.
Plus, though it's quicker to speak than type, it's also quicker to read than to listen. Eleti said his team considered this dynamic when deciding how ChatGPT would respond to audio prompts.
"We don't think of this as just pure voice in and voice out," Eteli said. "It's about voice in and then the right output back. Sometimes it's text, sometimes it's voice, sometimes it's a mix."
Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at scouncil@businessinsider.com, or over text, Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp at 415-757-8198. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.