OpenAI launches new GPT-4o, a faster and free AI model for all users

San Francisco:

OpenAI on Monday launched a higher-performance and even more human-like version of the artificial intelligence technology that underpins its popular generative tool ChatGPT, making it free for all users.

The update to OpenAI’s flagship product arrived a day before Google made its own announcements about Gemini, the search engine giant’s AI tool that competes head-on with ChatGPT.

“We are very, very excited to bring GPT-4o to all of our free users,” said Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati at the highly anticipated launch event in San Francisco.

The new GPT-4o model – the “O” stands for omni – will be rolled out across OpenAI products in the coming weeks, the company said, with paying customers getting unlimited access to the tool.

The company said the model can generate content or understand commands in voice, text or images.

“The new voice (and video) mode is the best computer interface I’ve ever used. It looks like the AI ​​in the movies,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in a blog post.

Altman had previously pointed to Scarlett Johansson’s character in the film “Her” as an inspiration for where he would like AI interactions to go.

“Talking to a computer has never felt so natural to me; now it is,” she added.

Murati and OpenAI engineers demonstrated the new powers of GPT-4o at the virtual event, presenting challenges for the beefed-up version of the ChatGPT chatbot.

The demo mainly featured members of the OpenAI team asking questions to ChatGPT, which responded with human jokes and banter.

The bot served as an English-to-Italian interpreter, interpreted facial expressions, and guided a user through a difficult algebra problem.

The company said GPT-4o had the same powers as the previous version with regards to text, reasoning and coding intelligence, and set new industry standards for multilingual conversations, audio and vision.

In one demonstration, ChatGPT successfully interpreted an employee’s surrounding environment through a smartphone camera, speaking in a friendly, feminine voice, not unlike the AI ​​bot in the movie “Her.”

“Hmmm, from what I can see, it looks like you’re in some kind of recording or production setup with lights, tripods… could you be getting ready to shoot a video or make an announcement?” said the ChatGPT bot.

– ‘Enjoy our time’ –

In recent weeks, there had been high expectations that OpenAI would launch an AI-enhanced version of an online search tool to compete with search engine Google, but on Friday Altman said that would not be the case.

Observers were also awaiting the launch of the GPT-5, but Altman said last week that his company would “be slow to launch major new models.”

The event is just the latest episode in the AI ​​arms race that has seen OpenAI backer Microsoft overtake Apple as the world’s largest company by market capitalization.

OpenAI and Microsoft are in a fierce rivalry with Google to be the main player in generative AI, but Facebook owner Meta and upstart Anthropic are also making big moves to compete.

Every company is scrambling to find ways to cover the exorbitant costs of generative AI, much of which goes to chip giant Nvidia and its powerful GPU semiconductors.

Making the new model available to all users could raise questions about OpenAI’s path to monetization amid doubts that ordinary users are ready to pay a subscription.

Until now, only low-performance versions of OpenAI or Google chatbots were available to customers for free.

“We are a company and we will find a lot of things to charge for,” Altman said on his blog.

AI makers are also feeling pressure from publishers and creators, who are demanding payment for any content used to train the models.

OpenAI has signed content partnerships with the Associated Press, the Financial Times and Axel Springer, but is also involved in a major lawsuit with The New York Times.

AI companies have also been faced with separate lawsuits from artists, musicians and authors in US courts.

(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)