OpenAI’s Mira Murati said the ChatGPT upgrade “brings GPT-4-level intelligence to everything, including our free users.”
If you’re using the accessible version of ChatGPT, you’re about to get a boost. On Monday, OpenAI debuted a new flagship model of its underlying engine, GPT-4o, along with critical changes to its user interface.
The chatbot, which sparked a new wave of consumer-friendly AI, comes in two flavors: the free version, ChatGPT 3.5, and a version that costs $20 per month, ChatGPT 4. With that subscription fee, you get access to a large language model that can handle a lot more data as it generates responses to your prompts.
GPT-4o should close that gap. Your interactions with ChatGPT will also become more conversational.
When ChatGPT debuted in November 2022, it kicked off a wave of generative AI products and experimentation that is still going strong. Startups like Anthropic and tech giants like Google and Microsoft introduced their own spins on generative AI chatbots, and companies like Rabbit and Humane have built new gadgets around the technology. (Check out our reviews of those products and advice and news at our new AI Atlas hub.)
OpenAI’s GPT-4o news came just a day before Google hosts its annual I/O developer conference, where artificial intelligence is likely to be a significant theme tied to its Gemini chatbot and Search Generative Experience. In early June, Apple expects to have much to say about AI at its developer event, WWDC.
Despite ChatGPT 3.5’s limitations, CNET reviewer Imad Khan noted earlier this year that “for most basic queries and even a few more complex ones, ChatGPT 3.5 will get the job done for most people,” providing “serviceable” answers even though “it’s always best to do a bit of fact-checking.” Is ChatGPT 4 worth paying more for? In his review of ChatGPT 4, Khan says it’s “noticeably smarter than its free counterpart. And for those who strive for accuracy and ask questions requiring greater computational dexterity, it’s a worthy upgrade.”
The new GPT-4o model
In a livestream on Monday, Mira Murati, chief technology officer of OpenAI, said GPT-4o “brings GPT-4-level intelligence to everything, including our free users.” She said the features would be rolled out over the next few weeks.
Paid users will have five times the capacity limit of free users.
GPT-4o, released in late 2023, is two times faster and 50% cheaper than GPT-4Turbo. (It provides more up-to-date responses than its predecessors and can understand—and generate—larger chunks of text.)
It will be available in 50 languages and added to the API so developers can start building with it.
Conversing with the new UI
Earlier this year, OpenAI dropped the requirement to sign up for accounts. On Monday, it announced a desktop app, which is also intended to make AI tools available to more users.
“We want you to be able to use it wherever you are,” Murati said. It’s easy, it’s simple, and it integrates very, very easily into your workflow.”
In another step toward making AI more accessible, OpenAI announced a “refreshed” UI, which includes the ability to interact with ChatGPT on a more conversational level and share videos as a starting point.
“We know that as these models get more and more complex, we want the experience of interaction to become more natural,” Murati said. “This is the first time that we are making a huge step forward regarding the ease of use.”
With new real-time conversational speech functionality, you can interrupt the model, you don’t have to wait for a response, and the model picks up on your emotions, said Mark Chen, head of frontiers research at OpenAI.
You can call ChatGPT with a familiar phrase: “Hey, ChatGPT.”
Using video and screenshots
Other ways to interact with ChatGPT now include video. For example, you can share live footage of a math problem you’re stuck on and ask for help solving it. ChatGPT will give you the answer—or help you work through it on your own.
You can also share screenshots, photos, and documents with text and images, ask ChatGPT about prior conversations, search for real-time information within a conversation, and perform advanced data analysis by uploading charts or code before asking questions.
Before this update, GPT-4, which came out in March 2023, was available via the ChatGPT Plus subscription for $20 monthly. It uses 1 trillion parameters, or pieces of information, to process queries. An even older version, GPT-3.5, was free with a smaller context window of 175 billion parameters.
“We also care a lot about the next frontier,” Murati said. “So soon, we’ll update you on our progress towards the next big thing.”
