You have to speak it to believe it; ChatGPT’s fantastic speech-to-text function, that is. It’s proved to be far smoother and more precise than some of the most established voice-to-text apps.

ChatGPT Is Better Than Google’s Voice Typing

Google’s voice typing is a tool I’ve used on and off for years. It comes with the SwiftKey keyboard app and Google’s own Gboard keyboard for mobile phones. It was good for a time—above average, in fact—but not anymore. ChatGPT has leaped ahead of the competition, and the results are slick.

If you’ve ever used Google’s voice typing, you will know how awkward it is to say “comma” or “period” out loud each time you want to add punctuation to your text. In ChatGPT, there’s no need. You can speak as naturally as if you’re having a chat with your friend, and it will effortlessly add punctuation where you would expect it to go.

This makes a huge difference. Take this sentence, for example: “I want to go to the supermarket and buy apples, oranges, watermelon, pears, and cherries.” To dictate it using Google’s voice typing, you would need to say “...apples comma oranges comma watermelon comma pears comma and cherries.” Repeating the word “comma” five times is clunky and unnatural.

What Makes ChatGPT’s Speech-to-Text Function So Good?

ChatGPT does an incredible job of converting speech to text thanks to WhisperAI, an advanced neural network. OpenAI released it as an open-source model aimed at people wanting to develop this technology into useful applications. Which brings us to a key sticking point. ChatGPT’s speech-to-text function is not yet integrated into something like a voice typing keyboard.

Despite this, I have begun using it all the time in my workflow. Even though Google’s voice typing is easily accessible from my keyboard, I end up wasting a lot of time fixing its mistakes. At one point, I started speaking in short fragments—think robocalls and computerized speech—to help it pick up my speech better.

That’s why I am happily using ChatGPT’s speech-to-text with a small workaround. In the end, it’s going to save me far more time and effort, besides letting me talk naturally.

ChatGPT is available on Android, iPhone, and macOS (M1 and later).

Those using Windows computers can expect a desktop app for ChatGPT in late 2024.

Note-Taking Using ChatGPT on My Phone

I write notes for my articles using pen and paper. This is, ironically, a very low-tech approach for a tech writer! While I enjoy it, eventually I need to get those words into a digital format if they are going to be of any use to me.

My preferred place to transfer my ideas to is a note-taking app. Google Keep, for example, is good because it automatically syncs your notes online and between devices. Or there’s Obsidian, my new favorite way to organize my thoughts into long-term storage. In the long run, it’s best to aim for a note-taking app that works on any device for added convenience.

My process is simple. Open ChatGPT and hit the microphone button, then start speaking. After that, press stop to convert the audio to text. Finally, copy the text and paste it into a note-taking app.

Voice Typing Using ChatGPT on My Desktop

At my desktop, I follow the same process. The app looks nearly identical to the mobile version, so you simply need to press the microphone button to start recording, then press the tick button when you’re done. After this, you can copy the text to where it needs to go, such as a Word document or an email.

Sometimes it’s good to have a record of your transcription directly in ChatGPT. In that case, you can add the line, “Do not comment:” immediately before the transcribed text, then hit enter to add it to ChatGPT’s conversation feed. This stops ChatGPT from replying with a long-winded answer, with the added benefit of maintaining a record of your transcriptions.

There are plenty of things you can do with ChatGPT besides converting speech to text, making it a nice multipurpose app to have on hand.

It won’t be long before this speech-to-text AI model makes its way into voice typing apps or transcription tools. Until then, you can use ChatGPT to produce clean and accurate transcriptions for spots of note-taking, brainstorming, or dictation.