OpenAIhas been making frequent announcements for the past week as part of its “12 Days of OpenAI” event leading up to theholidays. The launch ofSora, its AI video generation tool, was a recent notable announcement, followed by the release ofChatGPT search for freeto all users. Now it’s next reveal aims to make ChatGPT more accessible than ever.
OpenAIannouncedthat you now call ChatGPT on your phone. This is not a joke, and it even works on flip phones and rotary phones, not just smartphones. You can call ChatGPT toll-free at 1-800-ChatGPT. This only works in the U.S.
“We care a lot about continuing to reduce barriers for more people to try out AI and see what it can do for them,” Antonia, a product manager at OpenAI, said during thereveal. “We’re really excited that today we’re bringing ChatGPT to you through two familiar channels: calling and WhatsApp.”
The flagship chatbot and large language model (LLM) service from OpenAI, which can answer complex queries and leverage generative AI skill sets.
How to start searching with ChatGPT for free
OpenAI is rolling out ChatGPT search for free to all users, but you need to have an account to access it.
How to call ChatGPT on your phone
Add it to your contacts like it’s your friend or something
OpenAI’s announcement means you can now add ChatGPT to your phone’s contact list and call and chat with it any time. The number is 1-800-242-8478 (1-800-Chat-GPT). I can see this being handy if you’re driving, as you can now call ChatGPT throughCarPlayorAndroid Autoif it’s in your contacts. In the livestream reveal, OpenAI team members call ChatGPT to ask it about a landmark along a stretch of highway in the U.S. that reassembles a house from the Flintstones cartoon.
There are some limitations to the feature though. In the U.S., you only get 15 minutes of free calling per month. On WhatsApp, you can only message ChatGPT, not call it. If you want to access all of ChatGPT’s features, you’ll still need to use its mobile or desktop app, or visit chatgpt.com.
The idea of calling an AI chatbot on a rotary phone or flip phone is absolutely hilarious, and I have to give credit where credit is due and give OpenAI some props for implementing this. In all seriousness, this feature could be handy in rural areas with limited data and cellular service. It’s essentially a way to call the internet and ChatGPT’s large language model (LLM) to find something out.
AI video generation just got a lot easier
OpenAI has released its Sora text-to-video AI generation tool, but its not without limitations.
