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Here's a fun fact you can hold against me forever (and let’s be honest, you probably will): I’ve got Alexa, Waze, and every other talking gadget in my life set to respond with a female British accent. Imagine my delight last evening when "Vale" (one of ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode options) said, "Hello. It's lovely to meet you." with a voice that sounds like a mash-up of Emma Thompson, Mary Poppins, and Miss Moneypenny (with just a touch of Keira Knightley thrown in). Seriously, everything sounds better (and smarter) when spoken with a British accent. My personal preferences for synthetic voices aside, OpenAI has officially begun rolling out its Advanced Voice Mode (AVM) to a broader set of ChatGPT’s paying users, starting with those in the Plus and Teams tiers. This new feature enhances the platform’s natural speech capabilities, and it is expected to reach Enterprise and Edu customers next week. Alongside this rollout, AVM has received a design update, shifting from the animated black dots introduced earlier to a new blue animated sphere (which is significantly more aesthetically pleasing). There are five new voices – Arbor, Maple, Sol, Spruce, and Vale – bringing the total to nine. These voices, named after natural elements, aim to make interactions feel more organic. One voice ("Sky") shown during a spring update has been removed following a legal challenge from Scarlett Johansson, whose voice it reportedly resembled. In addition to new voices, OpenAI says it has made technical improvements to AVM, including better accent recognition, faster and smoother conversations, and expanded customization options like Custom Instructions and Memory. As always your thoughts and comments are both welcome and encouraged. Just reply to this email. -s P.S. I’m leading an AI post-training workshop today where I’ll be demonstrating techniques like fine-tuning and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). The goal is to help our client’s senior leaders better understand how to structure and prepare data to ensure AI models produce accurate, relevant, and actionable insights. If this is of interest, LMK. ABOUT SHELLY PALMER Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named he covers tech and business for , is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular . He's a , and the creator of the popular, free online course, . Follow or visit . |
