Hi all!
The advanced voice mode is currently unavailable in Europe for Plus users; however, according to the official OpenAI FAQ, it is accessible for Enterprise and Edu users in Europe. I understand that the lack of availability in Europe is linked to regulatory issues related to the AI Act. I hope that when the advanced voice mode does become available in Europe, it will still retain its ability to interpret human emotions from the user’s tone of voice. But why has the release already occurred for Enterprise and Edu users in Europe? Are there different regulations? If the release has already happened for Enterprise and Edu in Europe, why hasn’t it also occurred for Plus users?
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I believe this is due to the fact that these two versions are not included in the training of models
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I strongly hope that this issue will be solved soon, else EU users will have “different functionality stack” that should be converted in a different payment tier, is not right to have users pay for something they cannot afford (imho).
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This is highly frustrating. A few days ago my ChatGPT showed the advanced voice icon, I could press it but nothing happened of course. But more importantly it had a question mark icon where it gave some brief information that we, the users, would be kept informed about the availability. Now both those two icons are removed again.
So now there is no place where one can have information about the progress anywhere - not in the app, not on the website, not in the blog and not in the community forum. Hello PR department!
#Europe
#Availability
#Frustration
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There should be some kind of waiver that allows me, as a user, to say that I don’t care if the AI tries to understand my feelings or uses what I say for statistics or anything else… It’s not acceptable that, due to legislation that may still be in its early stages, we have to lose a functionality that, moreover, is paid for.
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It looks like advance voice mode is also available in Finland, or just the interface is being uploaded but the functionality is maybe not here yet because the voices selection is still the same like with the previous model
Being in EU is extremely annoying at the moment. We are missing on nearly every new tech due to some strange regulation that does not necessarily protect me as a user.
This is the “VW syndrome.” First, big markets are arrogantly ignored or intentionally neglected because of overconfidence as the so-called market leader. Then someone else swoops in and takes over. European competitors are just around the corner. This isn’t about the EU—this is OpenAI’s own short-sighted choice. If they want to let euros slip through their fingers, so be it. The market power of the EU is constantly and foolishly underestimated.
Am I the only one who’s actually happy we have the regulation? Sure it sucks we don’t have access to voice mode. But I’d rather error on the cautious side.
The reason it’s forbidden is because advanced voice mode detects emotions. I’m sure it won’t take you long to imagine a few scenarios where this ability goes horribly wrong. Just take the amount of damage Facebook (and other social networks) have done to global mental health. And they were able to do all that with a simple “Like” button. Imagine how much data would they get from your actual voice.
American approach is “let’s roll this out first and look at consequences later (if ever)”. I’m glad we get an alternative in other parts of the world. Heck, Open AI even admitted 6 months ago that some beta testers might have been emotionally attached to the bot.
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Yesterday I got the new advanced voice mode added, I live in Germany. Looks like its rolled out now across europe.