OpenAI Beats Meta to Market With Surprise Release of Delayed Voice Feature

Key Takeaways

• OpenAI has launched its long-awaited Advanced Voice feature.
• Meta has bagged five high-profile Hollywood actors to voice its Meta AI Chatbot.
• OpenAI continues to battle copyright lawsuits.

OpenAI has beaten Meta to the post with a surprise release of its long-awaited Advanced Voice for ChatGPT.

The move closely follows reports that Meta had bagged five Hollywood stars to voice upcoming versions of its Meta AI chatbot.

For a fleeting moment, it looked like Meta could gain a rare competitive edge in the AI space over the world’s leading AI company. 

OpenAI’s ‘Advanced Voice’ Comeback

OpenAI has started to roll out its  Advanced Voice  feature to its paying Plus and Team members.

The previously delayed feature has been fitted with new customizable instructions for personalization, new accents, and five new voices.

Touted as “human-like,”  the company said users will be able to interrupt the chatbot and change topics mid-conversation.

The five new voices, Arbor, Maple, SXol, Spruce, and Vale, bring the total number of voices to nine.

In a launch post  on X, CEO Sam Altman said: “Hope you think it was worth the wait.”

Meta AI Bags Hollywood Voices

According to a Reuters  report on Tuesday, Sept. 24, Meta had secured five voice deals with Judi Dench, Kristen Bell, John Cena, Awkwafina, and Keegan-Michael Key. 

These celebrity voices are reportedly set to launch in English-speaking markets on Meta’s major applications, including Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook. 

Like the rest of the industry, Meta has been increasingly focusing on the development of generative AI across every facet of its business. 

Meta’s AI Chatbot can be used to generate images and answer text prompts. The social media giant rushed to release the product after the immediate success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022. 

However, Meta’s signing of Hollywood actors to voice its chatbot could signify a one-up for the company. 

OpenAI’s Hollywood Scandal 

Before the launch of Advanced Voice, OpenAI landed itself in hot water with Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson in May after she accused the company of making one of their voices sound “eerily similar” to herself.

In a statement  to the BBC, Johansson said she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine.”

Johansson alleged she had previously turned down a request to voice the chatbot due to “personal reasons.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman denied Johansson’s claims, stating that the company never intended to resemble hers and that Sky’s voice belonged to a different professional actress. 

“The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson’s, and it was never intended to resemble hers,“ Altman said in a company blog post . 

The company removed the voice and apologized to Johansson. It is currently unclear if the actress will file a lawsuit against the company. 

Johansson was hailed one of Time’s annual list  of the “100 Most Influential People in AI for her pushback against Altman.

Pushback Against AI 

OpenAI is currently entangled in multiple legal battles, many of which revolve around allegations of copyright violations. 

These lawsuits focus on the company’s use of copyrighted content, such as literary works, to train its AI models without permission from the original creators. 

A group of authors, including high-profile writers such as George R.R. Martin and John Grisham, filed a class action lawsuit in 2023, accusing OpenAI of using their copyrighted works without permission to train ChatGPT.

This lawsuit was consolidated with others in early 2024 and focuses on whether OpenAI’s training practices constitute direct copyright infringement.

Hollywood has also taken significant steps to push back against the use of AI, primarily through industry-wide labor actions and legal negotiations.

Both the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) have voiced strong opposition to AI replacing human labor in scriptwriting and acting.

The Screen Actors Guild demanded  protections from developers exploiting actors by creating AI-generated works.

“Governments should not create new copyright or other IP exemptions that allow AI developers to exploit creative works, or professional voices and likenesses, without permission or compensation,” the guild wrote.

About the Author

Kurt Robson

Kurt Robson is a London-based reporter at CCN with a diverse background across several prominent news outlets. Having transitioned into the world of technology journalism several years ago, Kurt has developed a keen fascination with all things AI. Kurt’s reporting blends a passion for innovation with a commitment to delivering insightful, accurate and engaging stories on the cutting edge of technology.

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