OpenAI, the renowned San Francisco-based AI lab, has released a new version of its popular chatbot, ChatGPT, for iPhone users. This move aims to capitalize on the chatbot’s widespread adoption and provide an enhanced user experience.
Unlike the browser-based version, the ChatGPT iPhone app enables users to interact with the chatbot through voice commands, similar to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. However, the app generates text responses instead of delivering them audibly.
OpenAI sees this development as part of its mission to make AI research accessible and empower individuals with useful tools. The company remains tight-lipped about further details.
By extending its flagship technology to billions of iPhone users, OpenAI strengthens its position among the tech industry giants. ChatGPT represents a prominent example of generative AI, which generates text, images, and other media based on short prompts. Competitors like Google, Microsoft, and various startups have also introduced similar chatbots, incorporating them into a wide array of online services.
After more than a decade of research, companies like Google and OpenAI have successfully developed chatbots capable of revolutionizing internet search engines, email programs, and more. These chatbots can generate digital text suitable for diverse purposes, from assisting students in writing term papers to aiding professionals in crafting marketing materials and email messages.
Despite their usefulness, these chatbots have limitations. Since they learn from vast amounts of text from the internet, they cannot always distinguish between fact and fiction. Additionally, the computer code they generate may contain errors.
Presently, these chatbots primarily complement human workers rather than replace their skills outright.
While OpenAI is not the first to introduce voice-enabled ChatGPT technology (small companies and independent developers have done so), this iPhone app release marks a significant milestone. Microsoft also offers a voice-responsive version of its Bing chatbot. The ChatGPT iPhone app is available for free, while subscribers of ChatGPT Plus can access a more powerful version based on GPT-4 technology for $20 per month.
Initially launched in the United States, the app will gradually expand to other countries in the following weeks. OpenAI also has plans to develop an Android version of the app.
