ChatGPT Can Answer Your Email While You Drive Now. Set It Up Before You Need It.

OpenAI pushed an update to ChatGPT Voice on Wednesday that a lot of the owners I work with are going to like. You can talk to it and have it go through your email, check your calendar, book an open slot, and search your Slack. Out loud. No typing.

Before this, Voice was mostly something to chat with. If you wanted it to actually do something in your accounts you had to stop, switch over to typing, and do it the long way. OpenAI says that's fixed now. It's rolling out everywhere in the latest version of the app, and it runs on their new GPT-6 models. Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise users can hook up more than one Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Contacts account at the same time.

Think about who that's actually for. The roofer between two estimates. The HVAC owner with a van full of parts and forty unread emails. The salon owner walking in from the parking lot. Those are the people I sit across from in workshops around Toledo, and the number one thing they tell me is they don't have time to sit at a computer and learn a tool. This one you use with your mouth while you're doing something else.

So yes, I think it's worth trying. But there are a few things I'd set up first, while you're sitting still, instead of figuring them out doing 65 on I-475.

Know which account it's talking from

That multiple accounts feature is handy and it's also where I'd expect the first mess. Plenty of owners have a personal Gmail, a business Gmail, and maybe an old one from the company before this one. If all three are connected and you say "email Dave back and tell him Thursday works," which Dave, and from which address?

Connect the business account first and only that one for a couple weeks. Add the personal one later if you actually miss it.

Make it read it back before it sends

Voice is fast. That's the point. It's also how a quote goes out with the wrong number because it heard fifteen when you said fifty. Get in the habit of telling it to read the email back to you before it sends anything to a customer. Takes ten seconds. I'd do the same thing with calendar bookings. Have it tell you the day and time out loud, then say yes.

Internal stuff, like a Slack note to your crew, I care a lot less about. Customer facing stuff, always hear it first.

Watch where your phone is when it talks

This one's easy to miss. If it's reading your inbox out loud, it's reading your inbox out loud. On speaker in a customer's kitchen, with a client in the passenger seat, at the counter with people in line. Nobody thinks about it until an invoice amount or an employee's doctor appointment gets read out in front of the wrong person. Earbuds fix most of this. So does waiting until you're back in the truck.

Talk to your team before they turn it on

If you've got employees using ChatGPT on their own phones, some of them are going to connect their work email to this by next week without asking anybody. That's usually not a disaster, but it's the kind of thing your AI policy should cover. Which accounts can be connected, and what's off limits to send by voice. If you don't have a policy yet, I wrote about that in my first post here and it's still the thing I'd start with.

For a lot of small shops this is the first AI update that actually fits the way the day goes. Spend twenty minutes setting it up right at your desk and it'll save you a lot more than that on the road.