ChatGPT's voice chat feature is now free for everyone who wants to use it

If you've been following along with the OpenAI controversy over the last few days you will know that the company fired its CEO, hired another one, and then got rid of them and took the original CEO back all in the space of a weekend and change. But after all of that, the company still managed to find the time to launch a new feature.

To be more specific, it took an old feature and rolled it out to more people. The ChatGPT voice chat feature was previously limited to people who paid for the Plus or Enterprise subscriptions which meant that those who use the free version of ChatGPT were unable to take advantage of it. However, that's all changed after co-founder Greg Brockman shared the news via a post on X, the social network previously known as Twitter.

The ChatGPT voice chat feature allows iPhone and Android app users to speak to the chatbot and then have it answer back using a synthesized voice. It's similar to Siri and other digital assistants in that sense, but it's backed by the OpenAI Large Language Model that has made ChatGPT such a huge deal for people around the world of late. That also means that it's lightyears ahead of Siri and those similar assistants.

However, Apple is thought to be working on its own LLM which could potentially allow Siri to grow in abilities soon. It's thought that Apple intends to be able to ship a big new AI initiative in time for iOS 18 and iPhone 16 around September of 2024.