OpenAI delays launch of ChatGPT 4o’s voice mode; chatbot app now available for Macs

Last month, OpenAI launched the new generation generative Artificial Intelligence (gen AI) bot ChatGPT’s GPT-4o — the alphabet ‘o’ standing for omni, which refers to its capability of understanding queries in any combination of text, images and audio and responding via the same combination of mediums.

The voice mode demo of GPT-4o was a big hit not just among the people present at the event, but also gained huge traction on social media platforms worldwide. The chatbot’s voice and tone were eerily similar to humans.

And, the exchange of greeting between the demonstrator and the GPT-4o was natural, just like a conversation between two ordinary people. For movie buffs, it reminded them of the sci-fi classic Her, where the protagonist Theodore Twombly (played by Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with the virtual assistant Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson).

GPT-4o was made available to most devices soon after the announcement, and the voice response mode was supposed to be released in June; but, the feature release has been delayed by a month, as the company needs more time for testing and refinement so that it can deliver best user experience.

OpenAI also said it is scaling up the cloud infrastructure to support millions of user queries and deliver responses in quick time with less lag.

“We had planned to start rolling this out in alpha to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users in late June, but need one more month to reach our bar to launch. For example, we’re improving the model’s ability to detect and refuse certain content. We’re also working on improving the user experience and preparing our infrastructure to scale to millions while maintaining real-time responses, ” said OpenAI.

Next month, it will start to release GPT-4o’s advanced voice mode to a small number of users with ChatGPT Plus subscriptions. And, by the end of September, it will be made available to all premium subscribers.

In a related development, OpenAI has finally launched the much-awaited ChatGPT app for Mac devices on the Apple App Store.

For now, the new ChatGPT app supports Mac devices with M1 silicon (or newer versions). And, they should have the latest macOS 14 operating system.

OpenAI plans to bring ChatGPT for Windows devices later this year, most probably in the fall (September).

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