During its own “Spring Update,” OpenAI revealed how it is revamping ChatGPT and GPT-4. With GPT-4o (“Omnimodel”), non-paying users get access to a significantly more advanced model than before.
OpenAI already eliminated the need for login, but wants to further reduce the friction for accessing ChatGPT. Thus, the chatbot will have an application for macOS, akin to its mobile apps. However, this will still require an internet connection since ChatGPT is not possible to run locally.
Likewise, ChatGPT will now support 50 languages. This covers 97 percent of the world’s population, according to OpenAI. Microsoft Copilot, which is based on OpenAI technology, also added additional languages relatively recently.
Chat interface, real-time responses
The interface has been revamped and now looks more like a regular chat app. The voice feature has also been improved to provide near real-time responses. The effect for the end user should be a “real” conversation. Compared to the Voice feature, there is now no waiting time after sending audio; ChatGPT can even be interrupted and respond immediately to new utterances from the end user. In addition, the chatbot ‘watches’ live video footage, to which it also responds immediately. It appears that, akin to something like Alexa, “Hey ChatGPT” gets the chatbot to listen up on its own.
The key to ChatGPT’s innovations here is an increased efficiency. GPT-4o promises to achieve similar results to GPT-4, but 50 percent more efficient and therefore significantly cheaper (if used through OpenAI’s API). Previously, OpenAI used multiple models to process text, video and speech. This required a translation step to the next model, which produced quite a bit of latency. Now everything runs on GPT-4o, meaning the AI model is truly “multimodal” and not just text-focused.
During the presentation, OpenAI demonstrates the broader applicability of ChatGPT. For example, the chatbot is able to view live images, function as an interpreter and adjust its own intonation as desired.
Free GPTs
Other paid features of ChatGPT Plus now become free as well. Access to the GPT Store is now available to everyone, making specialized LLMs for programming, academics or poetry writing selectable. Note that these are third-party modifications of OpenAI’s GPT models. Thus, error proneness varies quite a bit and user data may be shared with parties other than OpenAI.
At the time of writing, the update is not yet live. OpenAI promises that the updates to ChatGPT will be rolled out globally in the coming weeks. In closing, the AI developer thanked Nvidia, whose CEO Jensen Huang single-handedly handed OpenAI the first-ever Blackwell AI chip. Without that hardware, the demonstration (video) would not have been possible, according to OpenAI.
There is no mention (as of yet) of a possible AI search engine from OpenAI, contrary to what we reported late last week.
Read more: Deal between Apple and OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into iOS 18