You can now speak with Copilot for free. It doesn’t matter if you’re based out of the United States or you’re on the free plan, Copilot Voice is now rolling out to everyone.
Back in September, much before Microsoft officially announced the reworked Copilot, also known as Copilot v2, we leaked all the details of the update. At that time or even when Microsoft announced the Copilot upgrade, the new Copilot was missing the voice mode in most regions, as the AI refused to speak outside the United States.
A new server-side update, which appears to have started rolling out in early November, turns on Copilot Voice for everyone. It now works for me in my country, and I’m not using Copilot Pro ($20 subscription). Nice, right? It turns out Copilot Voice mode is now rolling out to everyone.
Out of curiosity, I also reached out to Microsoft for confirmation, and the company told me that Copilot Voice is now being rolled out in more regions.
Microsoft won’t tell us where Copilot Voice is being rolled out, but the list of supported countries now likely includes many Asian countries, such as the Philippines. It may also include Ireland, where English is widely spoken. For now, Copilot Voice remains limited to the English language, but support for other languages is being explored.
This is in addition to the existing countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Copilot Voice still worked when we switched to German, but it would converse in English instead of German. We were also able to turn on Copilot Voice in other European languages/regions, but the AI still speaks in English.
But how good is Copilot Voice?
We have mixed feelings about the Voice integration.
By default, it has four voice models: Meadow, Wave, Grove, and Canyon. Each mode offers a unique “vibe” or tone.
In our tests, we noticed the Copilot’s voice often gets annoying because it talks more like an AI trying to be your digital buddy than a tool solving your problem. Copilot has changed a lot, but it doesn’t sound as good as before.
When we talk about an AI assistant, we are generally referring to a tool that actually listens to you, responds with an answer, and doesn’t throw random words to sound cool. The new experience makes it super annoying to use Copilot for productivity, but that’s a topic for another article where I intend to talk more about the recent Copilot changes.
One can hope that Copilot will eventually become as good as ChatGPT and Gemini, but the last big update hasn’t fetched good reviews from most reviews, and it’s unclear when the state of Copilot will get better.