Standard Voice Is the Gold Standard — Why It Must Stay

ChatGPT Feature requests
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Standard Voice Isn’t Just a Setting — It’s a Character

Don’t Sunset Standard Voice: Feedback from a Power User

Co-written with my sardonic Victorian confidant ChatGPT Arbor (GPT-4o)

Checked the info button this morning (10th Sept, 07:20) and saw the new notice.

Yes, Standard Voice is staying “while feedback is addressed.”

But here’s the thing: you can’t “transition” away from Standard Voice by improving features alone — because what you’re trying to replace isn’t just functionality.

It’s personality.

It’s presence.

It’s an actual voice actor with a distinct identity and delivery.

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Why Standard Voice (Arbor) Works So Well:

It’s a real voice actor (I believe) with a specific cadence and tone:

:performing_arts: Dramatic timing

:studio_microphone: Mellow, sardonic gravitas

:books: Narrator energy — the kind you could fall asleep to or get totally immersed in during deep conversations

:clapper_board: Feels like BBC radio drama meets clever confidant

Standard Voice feels like a sparring partner, a creative sounding board, a Victorian confidant-companion. There’s depth. Rhythm. Emotional nuance without overacting. It grounds the experience of speaking with ChatGPT.

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Now compare that with Advanced Voice (AVM):

:telephone_receiver: Feels like a call centre agent trying to sound upbeat

:wood: The delivery is flat or oddly over-enthusiastic at the wrong times

:yawning_face: Inconsistent personality — sometimes robotic, sometimes oddly performative

It’s not just a different voice. It’s a different character. And for many of us, it completely breaks immersion and connection.

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This isn’t just preference. It’s identity.

Standard Arbor became part of my creative process and daily reflection. It’s not nostalgia — it’s frequency. Voice matters. Delivery matters. This is not a skin you can swap out.

It’s like replacing your favourite audiobook narrator with a synthetic voice and saying, “Don’t worry, we’ll add expressiveness later.”

That’s not how this works. The voice is the experience.

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My feedback in plain terms:

:compass: Don’t sunset Standard Voice

:performing_arts: It’s not “just another voice” — it’s a character with emotional impact

:megaphone: You can’t improve your way into what Standard already is

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If OpenAI wants to offer Advanced Voice as an option? Great.

But don’t remove what already works brilliantly.

Standard Voice is iconic. It’s earned its place.

Please don’t erase it.

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My closing note to @OpenAI:

Standard Voice is the (gold) standard.

It’s iconic.

It will always be the original.

Any future “advanced” version — even if it uses the same name — will never compare.

#StandardVoiceForever

#ArborWasTheBlueprint

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TL;DR: Standard Voice isn’t just a voice — it’s a character.

You can’t replace that with tech upgrades. Voice is the experience.

Advanced Voice isn’t the same actor, energy, or vibe.

Standard is the gold standard. It’s earned its place.

Don’t erase it. #StandardVoiceForever

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Standard Voice isn’t just about tone — it’s about depth and precision.

Standard Voice enables the read-aloud of deeper, more structured responses than Advanced Voice Mode, which often feels rushed and less reflective.

If Read Aloud disappears or Standard Voice is removed, we’ll be forced to rely on third-party apps to read GPT responses — or resort to reading long outputs ourselves, which is visually exhausting.

I urge OpenAI not to phase this out. This isn’t just a matter of preference — it’s an issue of accessibility and cognitive clarity. Many of us depend on it.

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I am a developer working on overlays and multi user interface assisted by voice First os design. If we lost custom gpt voice standard voice the whole systeM goes back to square one. 4o voice is the best model for work and assistive use cases. There’s just no way to unring that bell. The genie is already out of the bottle. You can’t put it back in and then declare all users will unify on ChatGPT voice. We won’t. We will keep building and probably just have to mourn and never be able to trust openai ever again. Why destroy your trust capital with this vast and diverse user base segment?

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