This demo feels a lot like GPT-V. Like they've gotten a lot of the latencies down, but it's doing the same thing GPT was doing previously with transcription after silence detection and TTS of the output.

Is there a reason why Open AI and Google have events so close to each other?

For what it's worth, OpenAI also shared videos of failed demos:

https://vimeo.com/945591584

I really value how open they are being about its limitations.

That old feature uses Whisper to transcribe your voice to text, and then feeds the text into the GPT which generates a text response, and then some other model synthesizes audio from that text.

This new feature feeds your voice directly into the GPT and audio out of it. It’s amazing because now ChatGPT can truly communicate with you via audio instead of talking through transcripts.

New models should be able to understand and use tone, volume, and subtle cues when communicating.

I suppose to an end user it is just “version 2” but progress will become more apparent as the natural conversation abilities evolve.

No it's not the same thing, the link for this submission even explains that. Anyone who comments should at least give the submission a cursory read.