New audio capabilities enable users to speak to ChatGPT and obtain real-time responses with no delay, as well as interrupt ChatGPT while it is speaking, both hallmarks of realistic conversations that AI voice assistants have found challenging, the OpenAI researchers showed at a livestream event.

“It feels like AI from the movies ... Talking to a computer has never felt really natural for me; now it does,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a blog post.

Microsoft-backed OpenAI faces growing competition and pressure to expand the user base of ChatGPT, its popular chatbot product that wowed the world with its ability to produce human-like written content and top-notch software code.

At the livestream event, OpenAI researchers showed off ChatGPT’s new voice assistant capabilities. In one demo, ChatGPT used its vision and voice capabilities to talk a researcher through solving a math equation on a sheet of paper.

Last week, sources familiar with the matter said OpenAI planned to announce its artificial intelligence-powered search product on Monday, raising the stakes in its competition with search king Google.

Bloomberg and the Information reported that Microsoft-backed OpenAI was working on a search product to potentially compete with Alphabet’s Google and with Perplexity, a well-funded AI search startup.

However, OpenAI declined to comment.