OpenAI Releases GPT-Live and GPT-Live-1 mini: Full-Duplex Voice Models That Delegate Deeper Reasoning to GPT-5.5

OpenAI Releases GPT-Live and GPT-Live-1 mini: Full-Duplex Voice Models That Delegate Deeper Reasoning to GPT-5.5">

Today, OpenAI released GPT-Live . It is a new generation of voice models. GPT-Live now powers the ChatGPT Voice experience. The stated goal is natural, real-time conversation with AI. Two versions ship first: GPT-Live-1 and GPT-Live-1 mini . Both roll out to ChatGPT users globally today.

GPT-Live is built on a full-duplex architecture . Full-duplex means the model can listen and speak at the same time. During a conversation, it can add short cues like ‘mhmm’ or ‘yeah.’ It can engage in quick back-and-forth, or stay quiet when you think. For questions needing web search, deeper reasoning, or complex work, GPT-Live delegates. It hands the task to a frontier model behind the scenes. The result returns to the conversation when it is ready. At launch, that background model is GPT-5.5 . While the frontier model works, GPT-Live keeps the conversation going.

Earlier voice systems moved toward natural conversation, but with tradeoffs. Cascaded voice systems chained three separate models per turn. A speech-to-text model transcribed your speech first. A large language model then produced a response. A text-to-speech model converted that text back into audio. This let people talk to frontier models for the first time. But information could be lost across models, and responses were slow and stilted.

Turn-based voice models , like ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode, processed audio inside one model. That reduced latency and made conversations smoother. They still operated through discrete turns, waiting for the user to stop speaking. Turn detection was based on silence. A brief pause or background noise could be mistaken for the end of a turn. This caused the model to interrupt at unnatural times.

GPT-Live addresses these limits with two changes:

OpenAI built new human evaluations for pleasantness and conversational flow. Evaluators compared models in matched five-to-ten-minute conversations. In these head-to-head tests, GPT-Live-1 and GPT-Live-1 mini were strongly preferred over Advanced Voice Mode. The comparisons measured overall preference, turn-taking, interruptions, flow, and how natural each interaction felt.

On automated benchmarks, GPT-Live-1 also showed gains over Advanced Voice Mode:

OpenAI team notes it used a customized user model for the τ³-Voice Telecom eval. That user model was powered by its latest reasoning models. GPT-Live-1 (instant) and GPT-Live-1 mini use GPT-5.5 Instant in the background. GPT-Live-1 Medium and GPT-Live-1 High use GPT-5.5 Thinking with medium and high reasoning effort.