OpenAI has given a major upgrade to the ChatGPT mobile app, but you'll hardly notice it unless you go looking. Now you can continue talking to ChatGPT voice even if you leave the app and use other apps on your phone — or the screen goes into settings to access this feature

Enable background conversation in Voice Mode section and then start chatting with your voice just selected. — Although the sky is now gone.

This is in preparation for the launch of GPT-4o Voice in the coming weeks and is likely to be announced during the OpenAI Spring Update. Unlike the current voice, which converts text to speech and then to speech again, GPT-4o Voice converts voice to speech directly.

On the iPhone, when you're in another app and ChatGPT Voice is still running, you can access it by tapping on Dynamic Island.

The actual conversation is the same as if you are talking to an AI within the ChatGPT app. It converts what you said into text and there is a pause while thinking about that response, but otherwise it is a relatively natural conversation.

I've come up with "Sorry, I got an unknown error" several times, but this seems to be the AI voice version of the blue screen of death. This may be due to a previous issue with a recent ChatGPT outage, but load issues also occur from time to time.

It works its impressive. I was able to hold a conversation with ChatGPT Voice as if I were talking to a — slightly overly formal— human. That broad knowledge means that I can even ask a question to it, for example, about a news article, or offer word suggestions for crosswords.

Superficially, it's hard to solve points unless you really enjoy talking to AI while doing other things, but there are multiple use cases. You can also use the following methods:

You can use it while working on a document to ask questions, check spelling, or ask for ideas. Or use it in the game to provide tips and walkthroughs.

One of the best use cases I can think of tie back to my time in France last week when I was able to use ChatGPT to help with translation. Even if I open the map while touring the city, I can query the AI voice assistant.

In fact, this could all be preparing for when Omni voice launches. It is GPT-4o.This is a version of ChatGPT voice powered by speech synthesis, which runs faster natively and can be interrupted without a tap on the screen. You can also share videos that are likely why you need to run in the background.