Official documentation
Voice Dictation - FAQ (OpenAI Help Center)
OpenAI, OpenAI Help Center, 2026
Read the originalRead on October 17, 2026
- What it is
- OpenAI's help article on the microphone icon in ChatGPT. It says how dictation audio is transcribed, how long the audio is kept, whether it is used for training, and how to stop sharing it.
- How much weight it carries
- Official OpenAI help article, read from a 2026 archived copy because the live page sits behind a bot check. It describes the product, not the speech model it uses, and it does not say where in the world the transcription runs.
Facts taken from this source
- OpenAI says audio from ChatGPT dictation is kept for as long as the chat stays in your chat history, and that deleting the chat removes the audio clip within 30 days, with exceptions for security or legal reasons.
“Audio from dictation will be retained for as long as the chat is part of your chat history.” (How long do you retain audio from dictation?)
- OpenAI says that when you press the microphone icon in ChatGPT, the recorded audio is sent to its models to be transcribed, and the returned text can be edited before you send it.
“When you press the microphone icon to record an audio message, the recorded audio is sent to our models to be transcribed.” (How does voice dictation work?)
- OpenAI's dictation FAQ says that consumer users who have chosen to share audio to improve its models may have their dictation audio used for training.
“If you are a consumer user and have chosen to share audio to improve our models, we may train on audio from dictation.” (Do you train on audio from voice dictation?)
Pages that rest on this source
- Is Voice to Text Safe? How to Dictate PrivatelyGuide
- Dictation for Lawyers: Privilege and ConfidentialityGuide
- Are conversations with an AI chatbot privileged?Question
- Can you talk to ChatGPT with voice dictation instead of voice mode?Question
- Does voice typing save your audio recordings?Question
- How do you clean up dictated text with ChatGPT?Question
- What is the difference between ChatGPT dictation and voice mode?Question
- AI Cleanup for Dictation: Fillers, Punctuation, RewritesGuide
- Voice Assistants vs Dictation: Siri, Alexa, GeminiGuide
- Can large language models do speech recognition?Question
- Do AI dictation apps send your words to a language model?Question
- Does speech to text share your data with third parties?Question
- How do you dictate in ChatGPT?Question
- Is free AI dictation private?Question
- Is there an official Whisper AI app?Question
- Which AI models do dictation apps use?Question
- Why is ChatGPT dictation not working?Question
- Why is dictation not working in Gemini, Grok or Codex?Question
- Generative AIGlossary