Does the chatbot understand voice? What is the microphone for?

This is an FAQ answer for the SmartSearchWP chatGPT plugin for WordPress.

The chatbot’s microphone button lets you dictate your question instead of typing it. Your voice is transcribed into text in the input field; you can reread or correct the question, then send it with the arrow.

What the microphone does #

• It transcribes speech into text, live, in the input field.
• A second click on the microphone stops dictation.

What the microphone does not do #

• The chatbot does not answer out loud: the answer stays in writing.
• It does not record a voice message and sends no audio file.

Compatible browsers #

Dictation uses the speech recognition built into the browser (Web Speech API). It works on all browsers. The recognised language is the browser’s default language.

And the answer in my language? #

Once the question is transcribed, the chatbot answers in the language of the question, just as for a typed question. See How does SmartSearchWP handle languages and multilingual functionality?.