ChatGPT can now read its responses aloud - here's how to listen to them
Don't feel like just reading a response you receive from OpenAI's ChatGPT? Well, now you can sit back and listen to it. Already available in the mobile app and rolling out to the website, a feature called Read Aloud will do just that -- read the response aloud to you.
To try this out on your mobile device, install the ChatGPT app for iOS/iPadOS or Android if you don't already have it. Sign in with your account. Ask the bot to generate some content -- a story, a poem, a haiku, an essay, a joke -- whatever might sound mellifluous to your ears.
Also: How to use ChatGPT
After the response appears, press down on any part of it. From the pop-up menu, select Read Aloud. ChatGPT then reads it aloud to you. From a floating toolbar at the top, you can pause and restart the reading, skip ahead or go back 15 seconds, and even stop it altogether.
You can also listen to any past responses. Just tap the three-lined hamburger icon at the upper left to access your past conversations. Tap the one you want to hear and again press down on it and select Read Aloud.
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What if you don't like the voice reading the response? No problem. Tap the hamburger icon, select your name at the bottom, and then tap the settings for Voice. Choose among such voices as Breeze, Cover, Ember, Juniper, and Sky. Just tap the voice to hear how it sounds. Tap Confirm when you find the voice of your dreams.
Read Aloud works easily enough in the mobile app. I didn't yet see it on the ChatGPT website, so it's likely still in the process of rolling out online.
OpenAI has certainly been at the forefront of generative AI. But other rivals have been nipping at its heels looking for a piece of the action. Those include Microsoft with Copilot, Google with Gemini, and even Anthropic with Claude AI (which has been boasting about its new Claude 3 model). That means OpenAI needs to keep innovating with ChatGPT.
Also: I asked Gemini and GPT-4 to explain deep learning AI, and Gemini won hands down
Sure, a reading feature seems like a minor enhancement. Some of the folks who responded to OpenAI's X post about Read Aloud grumbled that the company didn't announce something more exciting, like GPT-5 or the text-to-video model Sora. But any feature that spices up the overall experience can help. And hopefully, we'll get updates on GPT-5, Sora, and other new items in the mix before too long.