If you talk to ChatGPT instead of typing, your voice settings are about to get shorter. OpenAI says it will retire the Advanced and Standard voice options from ChatGPT Voice on December 11, 2026. After that date, Live voice, powered by the GPT-Live model, becomes the setting for everyone who had picked one of the older options.
There is one notable exception. Live video and screen sharing will keep running on Advanced voice for now, because GPT-Live cannot do them yet. Here is what changes, what stays, and what to check before the date.
What is OpenAI changing?
In a Help Center article on the retirement, OpenAI lays out a short timeline:
- November 10, 2026: users are notified about the retirement.
- During the transition period: users can keep using Advanced or Standard voice.
- December 11, 2026: users will no longer be able to select Advanced or Standard voice from the model picker in Settings > Voice. Users who previously selected these models will be defaulted to Live voice.
The change also appears in the November 10 entry of the ChatGPT release notes.
Voice and are defaulted to Live voice. Live video and screen sharing stay on Advanced voice until GPT-Live has this capability." loading="lazy">Why is OpenAI doing this?
OpenAI's explanation is about usage. "In July, we introduced GPT-Live, our latest voice model that combines natural conversation with frontier intelligence," the company writes. "Since then, voice usage has nearly doubled, and virtually all people using voice in ChatGPT now use GPT-Live." It says the change "will allow us to simplify the voice experience and focus on improving GPT-Live."
The company also says it is carrying lessons from the older modes into GPT-Live, and names the areas it is working on: "the depth and detail of responses, maintaining continuity across conversations, and better personalization."
OpenAI acknowledges that not everyone will welcome the switch. "We recognize that some people are accustomed to Advanced or Standard voice's style or way of responding, and these model transitions can be challenging," the article says, and it points users to a separate Help Center page on navigating model transitions.
This is not the first time Standard voice has been on the way out. On August 7, 2025, OpenAI said Standard Voice Mode would be retired in 30 days. In a September 9, 2025 release note, it said it was keeping Standard Voice available while it addressed feedback from its users about Advanced Voice. This time the retirement comes with a fixed date.
How are Live, Advanced and Standard different?
OpenAI's FAQ describes the three options this way:
- Live runs on GPT-Live, which OpenAI calls a full-duplex voice model: it can listen and speak at the same time. It can show it is paying attention with phrases like "mhmm" or "yeah", handle quick back-and-forth, or stay quiet while you think. It can also delegate complex questions or agentic tasks to OpenAI's frontier text models while the conversation continues.
- Advanced was powered by OpenAI's previous turn-based voice model. It processed and generated audio natively, but it had to wait for you to stop speaking before it replied, which OpenAI describes as "rigid back-and-forth."
- Standard chained three models together: speech-to-text, a large language model, and text-to-speech. OpenAI says this "resulted in slow responses and loss of information across voice and text modalities."
The main ChatGPT Voice help page adds that Live is powered by GPT-Live-1.1 and GPT-Live-1.1 Quip, depending on your plan. It can use web search and memory, show visual results through supported widgets, work with text and images in the same chat, and use the plugins and connected apps available to your account. Our ChatGPT Voice explainer walks through how each mode works today.
What about live video and screen sharing?
"Live video and screen-sharing will continue to be powered by Advanced voice until GPT-Live has this capability," OpenAI says. The Voice help page states that Live does not support video or screen sharing, and tells users to pick Advanced when they need supported mobile capabilities such as video or screen sharing.
OpenAI has not said when GPT-Live will get those features. Android Authority also notes that the company gave no timeframe.
Will I lose my old voice chats?
No. According to OpenAI, conversations held with Advanced and Standard voice remain in your ChatGPT history, and you can continue them in text or voice. After December 11, 2026, voice in those chats will default to GPT-Live. If you want a copy of your history anyway, the retirement article links to OpenAI's instructions for requesting an export of eligible ChatGPT data.
What happens to voice in custom GPTs?
Custom GPTs follow their own schedule. "Voice with custom GPTs will continue using Advanced voice until their deprecation on December 11, 2026," OpenAI says. Custom GPTs themselves are being retired, and our guide on moving a custom GPT to a ChatGPT plugin covers that change step by step.
What should you do now?
Most people need to do nothing. OpenAI says nearly all voice users are already on GPT-Live, and anyone still on Advanced or Standard will be moved to Live voice automatically on December 11.
If you prefer the older style, you can keep using it until then, in Settings > Voice. Which options you see there can depend on your plan, workspace settings, region, app version and parental controls, according to the Voice help page. If you rely on showing your camera or screen during a voice chat, that will still run on Advanced voice after the date, until GPT-Live gains the capability.
