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OpenAI is pushing back the launch of ChatGPT's advanced voice capabilities. Originally scheduled for late June with a small test group of ChatGPT Plus subscribers, the rollout has been delayed a month for safety reasons. The company says it continues to refine the system, including improving content moderation and rejecting inappropriate material. OpenAI is also improving the user experience and underlying infrastructure, it says. The rollout will be iterative, beginning in late July, with all Plus users gaining access in the fall. The exact timeline will depend on meeting security and reliability standards. OpenAI is also developing new video and screen sharing features that will be released separately.

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Toys"R"Us has released the first commercial generated by OpenAI's AI video generator, Sora. Working with Native Foreign, the toy retailer produced an ad that tells its brand story and features its mascot, Geoffrey the Giraffe. Sora can generate up to one minute of video from text descriptions. The ad features Toys"R"Us' young founder Charles Lazarus and his vision for the company in the 1930s. It's unclear how much the production cost or how extensive the post-production was. Both would be necessary to truly judge the project on a "makes sense" scale. For what it's worth, the ad has some noticeable hand rendering issues, similar to early AI-generated images, that apparently weren't fixed in post. The commercial is available for viewing on the Toys"R"Us website.

Video: Toys"R"Us

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Google is working on a platform for personalized chatbots to compete with Meta and Character.AI, according to two sources who spoke to The Information. Users will be able to create their own chatbots or interact with celebrity-themed bots. Google is exploring partnerships with influencers and may integrate the technology into YouTube. The chatbots will be powered by Google's Gemini AI model. Ryan Germick, a designer at Google Labs known for creating Google Doodles, is leading the project, which could launch later this year. While Character.AI has found success with highly personalized chatbots, especially among younger users, Meta's celebrity chatbots don't seem to have gained much traction since their debut in the fall of 2023.

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