WhatsApp users can now speak to ChatGPT on the phone and even exchange DM’s with the chatbot thanks to a new update.
OpenAI announced on Wednesday that ChatGPT will soon have its own dedicated phone number which can be accessed by anyone with access to a smartphone.
The AI firm said the endeavour was an attempt to make the chatbot more accessible to less tech-savvy people, who would be more likely to engage with it if presented through a more familiar channel.
Whatsapp, the Meta-owned messaging platform, has around two billion monthly active users.
OpenAI is pushing to get ChatGPT in front of as many users as possible as it seeks to keep investors happy and keep up with the skyrocketing costs needed to generate the computing power necessary to run its AI models.
The launch came out of a ‘hack week project,’ OpenAI said during its announcement livestream, and was built ‘just a few weeks ago.’
Other developments revealed during the firm’s ‘12 days of Christmas’ series of updates this December include an AI text-to-video generator named Sora and a new top-tier subscription priced at 200 US dollars (£157) a month that will give subscribers access to the firm’s most powerful AI models.
While the WhatsApp version of ChatGPT will be useful, OpenAI said it remains an experimental way to talk to the chatbot, and so availability and limits may change.
The initiative bares a striking resemblance to a similar project unveiled by Google in 2007 called GOOG-411, which offered free directory assistance by voice.
The service was discontinued in 2010, and although an official explanation was never given, it was speculated the project was a way for Google to build a database of voice samples to advance its speech recognition software.
OpenAI spokesperson Taya Christianson told the Verge that the company would not be using data from the calls to train its large language models.
Currently, only US-based users will be able to call ChatGPT, although the text-based service will be available to Whatsapp users worldwide.
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