A new iteration of GPT-4 is being launched by OpenAI, GPT-4o, which powers ChatGPT.
This updated model is reportedly “much faster” and improve “capabilities across text, vision, and audio,” OpenAI CTO Mira Murati said in a livestream announcement.
It will also be free for all users, and paid users will continue to “have up to five times the capacity limits” of free users.
The company said in a blog post that the capabilities of GPT-4o “will be rolled out iteratively.” Its text and image capabilities are expected to be available now in ChatGPT.
CEO Sam Altman revealed the model is “natively multimodal.” This means it can generate content and understand commands made via voice, text, or image.
He also added that developers will have access to the API, which is half the price and twice as fast as GPT-4.
Part of the new model will bring new features to ChatGPT’s voice mode, and the app will now be able to act as a ‘Her’ voice assistant, responding in real-time.
The current voice mode is limited, can only respond to one prompt at a time, and works with what it is able to hear.
In a blog post that followed a livestream event, Sam Altman said the company’s original vision was to “create all sorts of benefits for the world,” but admitted to the vision shifting.
In the past, OpenAI has received criticism for not open-sourcing its advanced AI models.
Altman revealed the focus of the company had shifted to making these model available to developers via paid APIs, and for those third-parties to do the creating.
“Instead, it now looks like we’ll create AI and then other people will use it to create all sorts of amazing things that we all benefit from.”
Before this launch, reports suggested OpenAI would announce a new AI-powered search engine to compete against companies like Google and Perplexity.
The launch was planned to take place before the Google I/O conference, where various AI products from the Gemini team are expected to be launched.
In related developments, Apple and OpenAI have reached the final stages of negotiations regarding a deal to use ChatGPT to power Apple’s AI features in its upcoming iOS 18 update, according to Bloomberg.
It’s currently unclear if users will be able to disable said AI features as part of the system or not, and it’s also unclear what these AI features will be.
However, insiders revealed the company could leverage AI to improve existing apps and services, including summarisation capabilities for Messages and Safari, or Spotlight Search for the home screen.
