When ChatGPT released Advanced Voice mode in late September, Europe was initially excluded due to regulatory reasons. However, it seems that the region block has now been lifted.

OpenAI quietly confirmed the rollout on Tuesday in response to a tweet asking for updates about the EU. “Well, yes,” the company said. “All Plus users in the EU, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein now have access to Advanced Voice.” Previously, European users could bypass the region block by using a VPN, as noted by TechRadar. “I got a German iPhone, German as main language, German provider and I am in Germany. I never received any information about the advanced voice feature and today I just established a VPN connection to a random US-server and after an hour I restarted the app and got the new feature,” a Redditor wrote last month.

Advanced Voice was initially launched for select Plus subscribers in July and promises to provide a natural-sounding conversation with the AI. In a May demo with OpenAI employees, it easily understood their questions and responded in real-time with accurate, useful information, even if it was interrupted or the employee adjusted their query mid-sentence. It features nine voices, but the controversial “Sky” voice, which drew criticism from Scarlett Johansson earlier this year, has since been disabled.

Advanced Voice was rolled out in the UK last month, but OpenAI and other tech companies have been slower to release AI products in the EU due to stricter regulations. In August, OpenAI told Euronews Next that “Europe is a key region for us, and we’re committed to working with European Institutions to offer our products here.”

Access to Advanced Voice requires a ChatGPT Plus subscription, although free users can test it out with 10 minutes of access per month.