OpenAI delays rolling out its 'Voice Mode' to July

(Reuters) - ChatGPT maker OpenAI said on Tuesday that it was delaying the release of its "Voice Mode" feature by a month to July because of technical issues.

The company had originally planned to roll out the realistic voice conversation experience to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users in late June, but said it was delaying it because it needed time to reach its launch standard.

"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," OpenAI said in a post on social media platform X.

The feature will initially be released to a small group of users to gather feedback and will be made available to all Plus users in the fall, subject to safety and reliability checks, the company said.

OpenAI is also working on rolling out new video and screen-sharing capabilities.

In May, it said it would release a new AI model called GPT-4o, capable of realistic voice conversation and able to interact across text and image, its latest move to stay ahead in the race to dominate emerging AI technology.

The new audio capabilities will enable users to speak to ChatGPT and obtain real-time responses without delay, as well as interrupt ChatGPT while it is speaking - both hallmarks of realistic conversations that AI voice assistants have found challenging.

(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Pooja Desai)