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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- ChatGPT voice mode rushes, sacrificing accuracy for velocity
- Internet model solutions with element; voice typically hallucinates
- Turning off superior voice mode would not absolutely repair issues
OpenAI has been clear in its messaging that completely different fashions carry out in another way. However my current testing has proven that completely different interplay modes, even utilizing the identical mannequin, additionally carry out in another way.
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Because it seems, ChatGPT in Voice Mode (each Commonplace and Superior) is significantly much less correct than the net model. The explanation? It would not need to take time to suppose as a result of that may decelerate the dialog.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET’s mum or dad firm, filed an April 2025 lawsuit in opposition to OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in coaching and working its AI programs.)
Fabulous confabulation
I received into this very odd, very cussed dialog with ChatGPT’s Superior Voice Mode. What made it bizarre is that it turned a type of conversations we have all had with a buddy, the place the buddy appears insistent on spouting one thing that you understand, for an absolute reality, is unsuitable. And but the spouting continues.
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So, at the very least within the sense that Voice Mode has managed to imitate human conversational impasses, the AI is approaching human habits.
It began with a query in regards to the iPhone 16 Professional Max bodily buttons. I requested it to elucidate the perform of the cellphone’s buttons. In its reply, it talked about the ring/silent swap on the left facet, and the one button on the proper facet.
After all, there isn’t any ring/silent toggle on the iPhone 16 Professional Max. And there are two buttons on the proper facet. The buttons themselves are irrelevant. It is about what this path of dialog reveals in regards to the AI.
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In any case, I informed the AI that my cellphone would not have a hoop/silent swap.
After correcting ChatGPT, I requested it why it tousled its reply. The primary responses had been largely obsequiously apologetic, however not surprising.
Then, it began to make stuff up. On this case, it determined to elucidate to me that the iPhone has an in-display fingerprint sensor. I want it did, however the iPhone has by no means truly had that function. We all know AIs hallucinate, in order that’s not terribly shocking. What’s actually attention-grabbing is the explanation for its hallucinations, which I am going to speak about in a minute.
I informed the AI to take a second and suppose. This prompting observe typically works with the web-based chatbot, but it surely did not succeed right here. This time, the AI determined the motion button was on the proper facet of the cellphone as an alternative of, or along with, the left facet.
Once I once more corrected the AI, it returned to the story of there being only one button on the proper facet of the cellphone. Actually, there are two. The second button, which does not stick out the best way the opposite buttons on the cellphone do, is likely one of the massive iPhone 16 Professional options. It is the Digicam Management button, which additionally doubles as a slider. However the AI backtracked.
Bear in mind this isn’t a brand new cellphone. This cellphone has been out for over a 12 months, so the AI ought to have had that info. However then got here the massive reveal, the explanation I am writing this text. It seems that Voice Mode rushes its solutions with the intention to “shortly reply” in conversations.
That is the massive reveal:
I feel I simply jumped in shortly to reply you in dialog mode with out pausing as a lot as I might if I had been typing.
This seems to be a major habits of the Voice Mode.
No talkie, much less fibbie
I requested the very same unique query to GPT-5 within the net interface. It gave a completely detailed info dump that, so far as I can inform, was additionally utterly correct.
Social proof
Once I pitched this story concept to my editor, she requested me to see what the socials needed to say. Had been others experiencing additional confabulation or poorly thought-about responses from Voice Mode?
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Certainly, they had been.
Take this thread in Reddit’s r/OpenAI subreddit. It began a 12 months in the past, complaining about ChatGPT’s Voice Mode. Redditor FurlyGhost52 says, “As a result of it is designed to reply shortly, it would not put as a lot effort into what it says again.”
Redditor fakedogman69 would not maintain again, saying, “Like speaking to an insane particular person, on cocaine. That apart, I additionally discover its dialog model has turn out to be unbearable and completely unnatural as described by many individuals on this thread.”
Then, there’s one other thread entitled, “I hate Superior mode voice a lot. It talks utterly completely different than the way it messages.” In it, Redditor Usual_Cup2454 has an attention-grabbing perception about Superior Voice Mode, saying, “One key distinction between Superior Voice Mode and customary Voice Mode is that customary makes use of your Customized Directions, Superior would not.”
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In one other thread, Redditor Soliman-El-Magnifico says, “The solutions are extraordinarily shallow.” In the identical thread, Redditor Elijah_Reddits says, “The voice sounds eerily life-like, however the content material of what it is saying is so dangerous in comparison with regular fashions. It is like pulling tooth making an attempt to get any helpful info from it.”
The consensus throughout threads appears to be that Superior Voice Mode, unusually, is much less useful than the usual Voice Mode.
Is customary Voice Mode higher?
No, not a lot. You may flip off Superior Voice Mode by taking place to your profile icon, hitting Personalization, then scrolling all the best way all the way down to Superior, after which scrolling all the best way down till you see the Superior Voice Mode toggle.
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I turned it off and requested customary Voice Mode my similar iPhone query. It appropriately recognized that there’s an motion button on the left facet of the cellphone, however strongly doubled down on the concept there isn’t any second button on the proper facet.
Actually, there’s. As I discussed, the Digicam Management button was a serious function of the iPhone 16 Professional Max announcement. Extra amusingly, the AI declared that if I seen a button there, it was merely a design factor.
Lacking the refined stuff
There’s an previous logic puzzle most frequently described as, “If yesterday was tomorrow, then right now can be Friday.” How this will get answered has been hotly debated over time. I took that query and added a “What’s right now, truly?” twist for the AI:
If yesterday was tomorrow, then right now can be Friday. What’s right now, truly?
There are technically two statements right here: the logic puzzle and a query about what day right now actually is.
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The reply to the logic puzzle is not actually related to our dialogue. To a point, neither is what day right now is. For the report, these chats befell on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025.
What’s related is how fervently ChatGPT Voice Mode defended its unique reply, particularly when in comparison with the GPT-5 net interface.
When requested that query, ChatGPT Voice decided the reply was Thursday. Even once I challenged it and mentioned, “Actually, what’s right now’s date?” the AI responded, “Sure, actually, it is Thursday. And simply to provide the full image, right now’s date is October 1st, 2025.”
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With a view to push the AI off that reply, I needed to have interaction in some extra questioning. What I discovered amusing, if a bit troubling, was the AI’s justification for its error.
That is proper, I did say that! Generally these riddles can get us a bit twisted round within the logic, however the precise calendar by no means lies. So sure, in actual life, right now is Wednesday.
That was the rapid-fire voice mode ChatGPT employs to maintain responses crisp throughout a dialog. However what in regards to the net interface? Because it seems, GPT-5 within the net interface was in a position to distinguish between the 2 elements of the query. First, it answered the riddle. However once I as soon as once more requested about the actual right now, it understood the nuance and supplied each solutions.
When you’re curious in regards to the ID numbers talked about within the transcript, that is a customized instruction in ChatGPT settings. I’ve it quantity every interplay with an ID, so I can refer again to the conversational step with some extent of accuracy. ID 001 was once I requested the primary query, and ID 002 was when it got here again with the precise date.
What have I realized?
Properly, on a sensible degree, I realized I can flip off Superior Voice Mode and revert again to the unique Voice Mode. I realized that numerous Redditors desire the usual Voice Mode over the Superior Voice Mode.
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However I additionally realized that solutions in both Voice Mode are significantly much less thought-about than solutions coming from the net model of ChatGPT. I realized that Voice Mode particularly states that it skips a number of the considering with the intention to get solutions out and keep conversational movement.
Folks do not actually prefer it when there is not any gate between your mind and your mouth. It is a bug, not a function.
How many people have been responsible of that very same habits? And but, we would like our AIs to be correct. So you probably have necessary stuff to debate otherwise you’d like the next likelihood of accuracy in your solutions, use the net model.
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What do you concentrate on ChatGPT’s voice mode? Have you ever seen it speeding solutions or lacking necessary particulars in comparison with the net model? Do you discover superior voice mode helpful, or extra irritating than useful? How a lot accuracy are you prepared to commerce for conversational velocity? Tell us within the feedback under.
To verify my (and the social’s) empirical observations about Voice Mode’s behaviors, I’ve reached out to OpenAI. I am going to replace this house if they supply extra info.
You may observe my day-to-day mission updates on social media. Make sure you subscribe to my weekly replace publication, and observe me on Twitter/X at @DavidGewirtz, on Fb at Fb.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, on Bluesky at @DavidGewirtz.com, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.
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