Thanks to AI voice dictation, more people are speaking out their emails, messages, and code

Gavin McNamara has put down his keyboard and spends all day talking instead of typing.

He spends hours talking on his computer and phone, sending emails, writing presentations, posting on LinkedIn, and even coding through conversations using the AI ​​dictation app from San Francisco-based startup Wispr Flow.

AI punctuates, formats, and adapts your ramblings into coherent copy. McNamara types on average 125 words per minute, twice the average typing speed.

“At this point, I do everything that can be done by writing by speaking,” said the 32-year-old founder of software agency Why Not Us. “I’m just talking.”

It has printed nearly 300,000 words across 77 apps in the last five months; That’s the equivalent of writing three novels.

California’s tech giants and startups are at the forefront of a movement to use artificial intelligence and the large language models on which they are based to encourage people to interact with technology using their voices instead of their fingers.

“AI and graduate school have changed the dynamics,” said CJ Pais, creator of San Diego-based free voice-to-text dictation app Handy. “Using your voice is much faster than typing.”

A mix of independent developers and startups, including Handy, San Fransico’s Wispr Flow and Willow, among others, have emerged to deliver accurate voice interaction with AI.

The biggest names in tech are also creating new ways for people to partner with AI. Meta’s latest smart glasses are based on voice. OpenAI and Meta designed different personas for their bots’ voice chats. Even Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri are undergoing AI upgrades, and the companies predict this will enable everyone to talk more to their technology.

These free and paid methods of using spoken word on computers have attracted millions of users, including coders, administrative assistants, lawyers, content creators, and medical practitioners. Some optimists think the keyboard may become obsolete.

“I’m thrilled to announce that we’re removing keyboards from the world’s most prestigious television awards,” said Willow founder Allan Guo. LinkedInHe noted that the Emmy Awards team is using Willow’s voice dictation to send Slack messages and clear inboxes faster in preparation for the 2026 awards.

Over the years, major technology companies adapted For convenience, many of their products come with audio-first features. Today, there is a shift from voice as an accessibility feature to a productivity tool.

Producer of ChatGPT in late 2022 started giving unlimited access It switched to an automatic speech recognition model called Whisper, trained on 680,000 hours of multilingual data. OpenAI has shared accurate voice transcription technology, once a closely guarded big tech secret. Now anyone can download and run high-quality AI transcription for free on their laptop.

The new wave of AI dictation apps are basically using Whisper and building on top of it to offer live dictation. While there are free alternatives, paid subscriptions cost between $8 and $12 per month.

AI-powered dictation is now gaining ground among programmers and regular users, allowing people to talk to their laptops. Whether it’s writing an email, sending an SMS, designing a website, or assigning tasks to AIs, early adopters say dictation allows them to work faster, think more clearly, and be more productive.

“People who have adopted voice in a big way aren’t going to come back. When you’re talking into your laptop for 20 hours a week, typing feels like friction,” said Naveen Naidu, managing director of New York-based voice dictation app Monologue. “I think it’s heading in that direction: Voice becomes the layer of delegation. You say your intent and things happen.”

These new AI dictation apps are from Apple advanced chips on iPhones and Macs to run private dictation on the device.

Geoffrey Huntley, an independent software developer, switched almost entirely to voice for work in June.

He often starts projects by turning on a voice prompt and asking the AI ​​to interview him about his concerns and project needs before any code is created.

“I talk to him back and forth, back and forth, like I’m riffing in a jazz band,” Huntley said. This vocal dance helps improve the features, then the AI ​​takes the wheel. and creates software.

Beyond coding, Huntley uses audio to “let it rip” when capturing blog post ideas or messages, using the following practices: super whisper or Whisper Flow to get a “first dump” of thoughts before moving to the keyboard for final editing.

A growing number of software developers in Silicon Valley spend hours dictating coding instructions rather than writing them. Combination of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence agents that can code hourVoice inputs, which capture thoughts faster than typing, have increased productivity.

A self-described “vibe coder”, McNamara developed more than 25 web applications in a few months; this was a pace of development that would not have been possible without voice instructions.

“I don’t think about it [typing]“In any case, it would be efficient and effective to get there as quickly as I got there by talking,” McNamara said.

It took a roundabout conversation and several hours to get the AI ​​to build Sprout GiftsA gift registry and an app for kids rate any item with photos.

Of course, AI can make mistakes and its operation needs to be checked.

Meanwhile, widespread adoption has led to new annoyances as even power users feel awkward talking to their laptops. Crowded open offices are not designed so that many people can talk to their computers at the same time.

“I like the sound, but not in an office environment,” one of them said user About X. “I don’t like talking in front of other people. I would do it in a closed office or work in my car.”

McNamara uses a headset so people assume he’s on a call.

“It’s like the social hack I had,” he said.

While it’s too early to tell if and when the Qwerty keyboard will follow ribbon tape and fax machines and become obsolete, the pace for voice is accelerating, said Dylan Fox, founder of San Francisco-based Assembly AI, which provides voice models to companies.

“We are definitely at the beginning of what we think is a 10- to 100-fold increase in demand for voice, AI applications and interfaces,” he said.

For coder McNamara, talking more with chatbots has made him a better friend.

He was bad at responding to messages. Now he immediately returns to his friends.

“I respond so quickly I’m like, ‘Who is this guy?’ “they say,” he said.