ChatGPT is now capable of browsing the internet to provide users with up-to-date responses, instead of being limited to data produced before their previous September 2021 cutoff date.
After failing to integrate the chatbot with Microsoft Bing in May due to paywall challanges, the research firm has finally found a way utilizing browse the web without plundering restricted data.
But OpenAI isn’t just investing in its flagship product. In a busy week for the AI company, it also secured $1 billion of funding to build the “iPhone of artificial intelligence”.
ChatGPT Can Finally Browse the Internet
In a move that sharpens ChatGPT’s competitive advantage against rivals like Google Bard and Bing AI, the chatbot can now search the internet to provide relevant, up-to-date content to its users.
The long overdue update overrides previous limits which prevented ChatGPT from relying on data that was produced after its September 2021 cut-off date.
“Browsing is available to Plus and Enterprise users today, and we’ll expand to all users soon. To enable, choose Browse with Bing in the selector under GPT-4,” – OpenAI on X
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The AI research firm recently Tweeted that the browsing integration is currently available to those with a Plus and Enterprise plan, and will be available to general users “soon”.
OpenAI first tried to connect to Microsoft Bing back in May of this year. However, it shelved the project after it found out users were bypassing paywalled websites and retrieving restricted information for free – an offence that Microsoft’s Bing Chat and Google Bard have both also previously been found guilty of.
After working hard to resolve this issue, OpenAI has implemented new rules including “identifying user agents so sites can control how ChatGPT interacts with them” and reading and respecting sites’ robots.txt files so they only crawl consenting sites.
ChatGPT Ups its Game, Adding Siri-Like Features
Integrating with Microsoft Bing is one of the biggest upgrades ChatGPT’ has made since its launch in November 2022. However, it’s just one in a series of improvements its creator OpenAI has announced this week.
On Monday, the company revealed ChatGPT will soon be able to have voice conversations with its users, in a similar way to Apple’s voice-activated digital assistant Siri.
The feature, which relies on technology Spotify is currently using to translate podcasts, will also be able to narrate bedtime stories, and speak out loud text input from users, in what OpenAI is claiming “opens doors to many creative and accessibility-focused applications”.
ChatGPT new voice activation and image interaction features. Source: openai.com
But it doesn’t stop there. ChatGPT will also soon support image interactions, enabling users to generate richer, more specific responses by pasting images into prompts. These features will become available to Plus and Enterprise subscribers over the next few weeks.
OpenAI in Talks to Build the “iPhone of AI”
In what’s turning out to be a very busy week for OpenAI, the AI powerhouse also recently announced it’s been in “advanced talks” with former Apple designer and Steve Jobs collaborator Jony Ive about creating the “iPhone of artificial intelligence”.
The venture, which aims to create a more natural and intuative user experience for interacting with AI, has already secured $1 billion in funding from the Japanese company SoftBank, according to the Financial Times.
Details about the prospective smartphone haven’t been announced and no official deal has been made. However, with Apple recently reporting a historic dip in iPhone sales, and SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son being prepared to pump tens of billions of dollars into AI partnetships, OpenAI seems to have a solid chance of biting into Apple’s smartphone monopoly.
