Repeat phrase instructions broken in gpt-realtime-1.5

Hi @dbhc, yeah this one’s a bit jarring if you’re coming from the older model behavior.

The shift is real. The newer realtime model treats instructions more like guidance than strict rules, so things that used to act like hard constraints now get interpreted more loosely.

For example:

Older model:

When you can’t clearly hear the user, don’t proceed. If there’s background noise or you only caught part of the sentence, pause and ask them politely to repeat themselves in their preferred language, and keep the conversation in the same language.

Newer model:

Only respond to clear audio or text.

If audio is unclear/partial/noisy/silent, ask for clarification in {preferred_language}.

Continue in the same language as the user if intelligible.

The newer version works better because it’s broken into short, explicit rules instead of one long instruction. That structure tends to stick more reliably with 1.5.

Also, you might find the “Using realtime models” prompting guide helpful since it’s aligned with how the newer model behaves.

Curious if tightening the prompt like this improves things on your side.

-Mark G.