AI News: OpenAI Excludes EU, UK From ChatGPT Voice Mode Launch

AI News: OpenAI has released the official version of the Advanced Voice Mode (AVM) for ChatGPT which aims at providing the users with better and more conversational experience.

The rollout, nonetheless, does not cover several European countries such as the European Union, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Norway. For now, AVM is only available for users of ChatGPT Plus and Teams, but Enterprise and Edu customers will be able to use it starting next week.

OpenAI Launches Advanced Voice Mode

Sam Altman led OpenAI has started the release of its Advanced Voice Mode (AVM) to users of its Plus and Teams plans. The company announced on Tuesday via its official X account (previously Twitter) that the feature will be extended to all eligible users within the week. 

Some of the new additions the company has incorporated in this update include the Custom Instructions, Memory, five new voices, and better accent recognition.

Advanced Voice is rolling out to all Plus and Team users in the ChatGPT app over the course of the week.

While you’ve been patiently waiting, we’ve added Custom Instructions, Memory, five new voices, and improved accents.

It can also say “Sorry I’m late” in over 50 languages. pic.twitter.com/APOqqhXtDg

— OpenAI (@OpenAI) September 24, 2024

As stated in the post, AVM is able to respond in over 50 languages and can even say things like ‘Sorry I’m late’ making the conversational AI more flexible in terms of language.

Regions Excluded from AVM Rollout

However, the Sam Altman led firm noted that users in several European regions will not be able to access AVM right away. Some of the countries which are not included in the rollout at the moment include the EU member states, the UK, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway. 

There is no specific time frame shared by the company regarding the availability of voice capabilities in these regions; however, the regulatory issues might be causing the hold up. This AI news comes in light of increasing concerns regarding the regulation of AI in Europe concerning privacy and data protection. 

OpenAI is still dealing with these legal frameworks that have been identified as potential barriers to the introduction of new features in these markets. Moreover, before the AI news the company faced a security breach when its official X account was compromised in a cryptocurrency scam.

The attackers used the platform to promote a fake blockchain token called “$OPENAI,” misleading users into visiting phishing sites to steal their crypto wallet credentials. The scam claimed that users could receive a share of the non-existent token by participating in the promotion.

Missing Features and Legal Challenges

While AVM brings enhanced voice controls, some of the features demonstrated in the past are missing in the present product range. For instance, the video and screen sharing functions of ChatGPT which were unveiled in May this year have not been made available to the public.

These multimodal features were designed to enable users interact with both the visual and the auditory mode for instance to receive a feedback on images or videos in real time.

Besides the absence of certain features, OpenAI has experienced issues such as legal issues and content moderation issues. Such an action includes the Sky voice removal after Scarlett Johansson threatened legal actions. The Sam Altman led company however claimed that the similarity was coincidental and, as a precaution, removed the voice from use.