DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup, has begun testing voice conversation features in a gray-scale rollout, according to IThome. Users selected for the test will see a small speaker icon in the top-right corner of the DeepSeek app, and a new “reading voice” option in settings lets them choose from four different tones.
The gray-scale test means the feature is being gradually released to a subset of users before a wider launch, a common practice among Chinese tech firms to gather feedback and manage server load. The voice feature is expected to make DeepSeek’s chatbot more accessible for hands-free use, potentially expanding its appeal beyond text-based interactions.
Voice as a new interface
Adding voice input and output is a significant step for DeepSeek, which has gained attention for its open-weight models and competitive pricing. Voice conversation could position the app as a more direct rival to mainstream assistants like Siri or Alexa, though DeepSeek’s focus remains on AI-powered chat and reasoning tasks.
The four available tones are not specified in the report, but the option suggests DeepSeek is aiming to give users personalization in how the AI sounds, which could be particularly useful for long reading sessions or for users with visual impairments.
Broader context
This development comes alongside other DeepSeek updates mentioned in the IThome report: the company will continue offering its V4 Pro API service beyond the originally planned September 14 shutdown, with unchanged billing, and it has released the V4.1 Flash model on the national supercomputing internet. Additionally, Xiaomi has open-sourced an industrial-grade target-speaker speech recognition model called Xiaomi-CocktailASR-1, indicating a broader trend of Chinese AI companies pushing into voice technology.
For users, the voice feature could make DeepSeek more convenient for on-the-go queries, while developers may benefit from the continued API availability. The gray-scale test also signals that DeepSeek is iterating quickly, a hallmark of the competitive Chinese AI landscape.
Based on reporting by IT之家. Edited and published in English by geisou.
