OpenAI, the publisher of ChatGPT, presented this Monday, May 13, its new generative artificial intelligence model, GPT-4o, which allows the chatbot to interact with its users like an ultra-sophisticated voice assistant.
“You have transcription, intelligence and the ability to speak, all rolled into one to bring you voice mode,” summarized Mira Murati, CTO of the Californian start-up, during a video presentation broadcast live Monday morning. With two of her colleagues, she demonstrated how users will be able to interact with ChatGPT, during fluid conversations, reproducing in a stunning way discussions between humans.
The presentation of the company which launched the generative artificial intelligence revolution was eagerly awaited, while the tech giants are multiplying the announcements of new AI tools, ever more efficient and personalized.
OpenAI’s AI assistant, which users can easily interrupt, is able to read the emotions on their faces via their smartphone camera, guide them to do breathing exercises, tell them a story or even to help them solve a math problem. “You look happy, with a hint of excitement. […] Do you want to tell me what is the source of all this good humor?” the machine asked an OpenAI engineer. When he replied that he was showing the public how “useful” it is and fabulous”, she exclaimed back “Oh stop, you’re making me blush”.
Mira Murati insisted that the new GPT-4o model is supposed to bring to all its users its most advanced capabilities, in production and understanding of text, images and sounds and voices, via ChatGPT. “We are really excited to bring GPT-4o to all of our free users. Paid users will continue to benefit from usage limits that are five times higher than free users,” she detailed.
“Magic”
Since the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022 – its language model capable of generating text on a simple query in everyday language – Microsoft, the main investor in OpenAI, Google and all of Silicon Valley have been in a race for AI tools and assistants . Google is due to present its latest innovations on Tuesday, while Microsoft has a press and developer event next week.
On Friday, Sam Altman denied rumors about the announcements his company was preparing: “Not GPT-5, not a search engine,” he declared on X (formerly Twitter). “But […] “We’ve been working on some new things and we think people will love it,” he added. “For me, it’s like magic.”
The thirty-year-old billionaire regularly promotes his vision of an AI which will one day be “general”, that is to say equipped with human cognitive capacities, capable of achieving scientific breakthroughs in the service of humanity. OpenAI has been valued at some $80 billion, according to the New York Times, during a securities sale last February. And according to the Financial Timesits annual revenues have been around $2 billion since December 2023, an exceptional level of growth comparable to a handful of other start-ups in the region, including Google and Meta (Facebook).