{
  "id": 10560486,
  "title": "Build a Voice-Enabled Chatbot with ElevenLabs and OpenAI",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/28/build-a-voice-enabled-chatbot-with-elevenlabs-and-openai",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-28T23:43:30.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/voice_developer/build-a-voice-enabled-chatbot-with-elevenlabs-and-openai-3afp"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Voice-enabled chatbots are increasingly popular for customer support, personal assistants, and hobby projects. By integrating voice capabilities, these chatbots provide a more natural, hands-free user experience. With the advancement of large language models (LLMs) and high-quality text-to-speech (TTS) services, it's now possible to create a voice-first assistant in just a few hours. This guide demonstrates how to combine OpenAI's GPT-4 for conversational understanding and ElevenLabs for realistic speech synthesis. By the end, users will have a Python script that listens to audio input, transcribes it using OpenAI's GPT-4, and then speaks the response back using ElevenLabs' voice cloning technology.\n\nTo get started, you'll need Python 3.9 or later. Install the required packages using pip:\n\npip install openai requests sounddevice numpy scipy\n\nIf you prefer pyaudio instead of sounddevice, replace sounddevice with pyaudio in the installation command.\n\nNext, obtain API keys from both OpenAI and ElevenLabs and secure them, for example, by setting environment variables:\n\nexport OPENAI_API_KEY = sk-...\nexport ELEVEN_API_KEY = ...\n\nThe script below outlines the process of creating a voice-enabled chatbot:\n\n1. Install the necessary packages:\npip install openai requests sounddevice numpy scipy\n\n2. Set up your environment variables:\nexport OPENAI_API_KEY = sk-...\nexport ELEVEN_API_KEY = ...\n\n3. Use the provided Python script to record audio, transcribe it with GPT-4, and synthesize the response using ElevenLabs.",
  "summary": "Why a Voice‑Enabled Chatbot? Chatbots have become the go‑to interface for customer support, personal assistants, and even hobby projects. Adding a voice layer turns a static text bot into a more natural, hands‑free experience. With the rise of powerful large‑language models (LLMs) and high‑quality text‑to‑speech (TTS) services, you can spin up a voice‑first assistant in a single afternoon. In…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}