OpenAI Releases GPT-Live and GPT-Live-1 Mini: Full-Duplex Voice Models Backed by GPT-5.5 Reasoning

OpenAI has launched GPT-Live and GPT-Live-1 mini, two full-duplex voice models designed for real-time, natural spoken conversation. The key architectural decision is that deeper reasoning tasks are delegated to GPT-5.5 underneath, meaning the voice layer stays low-latency while complex queries still get a capable backbone. This is a significant departure from bolt-on TTS/STT pipelines — developers building voice assistants, customer support bots, or real-time interfaces now have a dedicated model optimized for that modality. The mini variant presumably offers cost and latency tradeoffs for lighter use cases. Developers working on conversational AI should evaluate whether this replaces their current STT + LLM + TTS stack and check the API availability for integration.