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

Gavin McNamara has ditched his keyboard and spends all day talking rather than typing.

He talks for hours on his computer and phone, sending emails, writing presentations, posting on LinkedIn and even coding conversations using an AI dictation app from San Francisco startup Wispr Flow.

The AI ​​punctuates, formats and adapts its ramblings into coherent copy. McNamara writes an average of 125 words per minute, which is double the average typing speed.

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

Across 77 apps, he has dictated nearly 300,000 words over the past five months, which is the equivalent of writing three novels.

California tech titans and startups are at the forefront of a movement to use AI and the big language models they’re based on to push people to interact with technology using their voices rather than their fingers.

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

A mix of independent developers and startups, including San Francisco’s Handy, Wispr Flow and Willow and others, have sprung up to offer precise voice interaction with artificial intelligence.

The biggest names in tech are also creating new ways to partner with AI. Meta’s latest smart glasses rely on voice. OpenAI and Meta have designed distinct personalities for their bots’ voice chats. Even Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri are undergoing AI upgrades, which the companies say will make everyone talk to their technology much more.

These free and paid methods of using speech with computers have attracted millions of users, including coders, executive assistants, lawyers, content creators, and doctors. Some optimists think the keyboard could become obsolete.

“I’m excited to announce that we’ve removed keyboards from the world’s most prestigious television awards,” Willow founder Allan Guo said in a LinkedIn post, noting that the Emmys team used Willow’s voice dictation to send Slack messages and clear inboxes faster in preparation for the 2026 awards.

Over the years, major tech companies have adapted many of their products with voice-focused features – for convenience. Today, we’re moving from voice as an accessibility feature to a productivity tool.

In late 2022, the maker of ChatGPT began offering unlimited access to its automatic speech recognition model called Whisper, trained on 680,000 hours of multilingual data. OpenAI has shared the technology enabling accurate audio transcription, once a big, closely guarded tech secret. Anyone can now download and run high-quality AI transcription on their laptop for free.

The new wave of AI dictation apps use Whisper as a foundation and build on that foundation to offer live dictation. Although there are free alternatives, the paid subscription costs between $8 and $12 per month.

AI-based dictation is now gaining ground among programmers and regular users – and getting people to talk on their laptops. Whether writing emails, sending text messages, designing a website, or giving tasks to AI, early adopters say dictation allows them to work faster, think more clearly, and be more productive.

“People who have widely adopted voice won’t go back. Once you’re talking 20 hours a week on your laptop, typing on your keyboard feels like friction,” said Naveen Naidu, chief executive of New York-based voice dictation app Monologue. “Where I think this is heading: voice becomes the delegation layer. You express your intention, and things happen.”

These new AI dictation applications exploit those of Apple advanced chips on iPhone and Mac to run private dictation on the device.

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

He often starts projects by opening a voice prompt and having the AI ​​poll him on his concerns and project requirements before any code is generated.

“I talk to him, like I’m riffing in a jazz band, back, forward, back, forward,” Huntley said. This vocal dance allows the specifications to be refined, then the AI ​​takes the wheel and builds the software.

Beyond coding, Huntley uses voice to “let go” when capturing ideas for blog posts or posts, using apps like Superwhisper or Whisper Flow to get a “first dump” of thoughts before moving to a keyboard for final editing.

A growing number of software developers in Silicon Valley dictate coding instructions for hours instead of typing them out. The combination of rapidly evolving AI agents that can code for hours, and voice input that captures thoughts faster than typing them, has boosted their productivity.

McNamara, a self-described “vibe coder,” created more than 25 web applications in a few months, a speed of development that would be impossible without voice instructions.

“I don’t think [typing]by all means, would even be effective or efficient in getting there as quickly as I did in speaking,” McNamara said.

It used a meandering conversation and a few hours for the AI ​​to create Sprout gifts, a gift registry for kids, and an app to rate all the items via photos.

Certainly, AI can make mistakes and its work must be verified.

Meanwhile, its widespread adoption has brought new drawbacks, as even power users feel embarrassed talking to their laptops. Crowded open offices are not designed for multiple people to converse on their computers at the same time.

“I love voice, but not in an office,” one user said on X. “I don’t like talking with other people. I would do it in an office behind closed doors or go to work in my car.”

McNamara uses headphones so people assume he is on a call.

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

Although it’s too early to tell if and when the Qwerty keyboard might keep up with the obsolescence of teletypewriters and fax machines, the pace toward voice is accelerating, said Dylan Fox, founder of San Francisco-based Assembly AI, which offers audio models to businesses.

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

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

Before, he didn’t respond well to text messages. Now he immediately finds his friends.

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