June Wan/ZDNETHow often does a simple tweak of your phone settings deliver a glimpse of the future?OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft all are launching AI-powered voice assistants; OpenAI’s iteration — Advanced Voice — boasts one major advantage: understanding your surroundings. Also: The best AI chatbots: ChatGPT, Copilot, and notable alternativesEarly last year, ChatGPT’s Voice Mode was upgraded with video, screen share, and image uploads; last month, OpenAI brought that enhanced experience to Plus and Pro users. For the $20 per month, users can take advantage of video and on-screen awareness, which helps the assistant understand their surroundings and use that context to provide more informed and relevant answers. The assistant also has access to the internet, allowing users to fulfill nearly all of their voice assistant needs with one tool. Despite the latest iPhone’s Siri having access to ChatGPT to some capacity for answers that ChatGPT can better assist, there is no native iOS integration for accessing the Advance Voice experience. However, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 users can tweak their Action Button to activate Advance Voice Mode when clicked, creating an experience almost as seamless as that of using Siri. As AI expert Ethan Mollick, professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, shared in an X post, this quick adjustment can give users a glimpse at the future of voice assistants.If you have an iPhone and want to get a sense of the future of AI as an assistant, you can map your action button to Advanced Voice on ChatGPTThe addition of video (it can “see” what your camera sees) & internet search (it can look up website info) make it suddenly very useful pic.twitter.com/1tM13oXDFx— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) January 2, 2025
The best part: Setup is easy. Here are some quick instructions. How to access ChatGPT’s voice assistant right from your iPhone’s Action ButtonBefore you even get started, there are a few things you’ll want to make sure you have, including an iPhone with the Action Button, which includes the iPhone 15 Pro and the entire iPhone 16 lineup. Also: How to use Gemini Live on Android as your AI voice assistant – for freeYou will also need a ChatGPT Plus, Pro, or Teams subscription to access the video feature and to have unlimited access to advanced voice audio. Free users only have access to a monthly preview to try Advanced Voice. For most users, the ChatGPT Plus $20 per month subscription will suffice, although there is the Pro subscription, at $200 per month, for mega users. Once you have that out of the way, here’s how to get started: More