Home OpenAI OpenAI Launches GPT-4o and ChatGPT Desktop App

OpenAI Launches GPT-4o and ChatGPT Desktop App

OpenAI has announced the launch of GPT-4o and ChatGPT Desktop App for macOS users.

By sk
Published: Updated: 2K views

On May 13, 2024, OpenAI has announced the launch of GPT-4o, their new flagship artificial intelligence model. The "o" in GPT-4o stands for "omni", reflecting the model's ability to handle various input and output modalities seamlessly.

GPT-4o brings advanced AI capabilities comparable to GPT-4 to a broader audience, including free users. It offers improved performance across text, vision, audio, and real-time interaction.

OpenAI has also launched a new ChatGPT desktop app for macOS, featuring a simple keyboard shortcut for queries and the ability to discuss screenshots directly within the app.

Introducing GPT-4o

Introducing GPT-4o
Introducing GPT-4o

GPT-4o represents a major advancement in enabling more natural and intuitive interactions between humans and computer systems.

This advanced model can accept any combination of text, audio, and image inputs, and generate outputs in any of those modalities.

One of the key features of GPT-4o is its ability to respond to audio inputs with extremely low latency. It can process and respond to audio prompts in as little as 232 milliseconds, with an average response time of 320 milliseconds.

This response time is similar to the average human response time in a typical conversation, enabling more natural and seamless audio interactions.

In terms of performance, GPT-4o matches the capabilities of GPT-4 Turbo for text processing in English and code generation. However, it demonstrates significant improvements in handling text in non-English languages compared to previous models.

Additionally, GPT-4o is optimized for speed and cost-effectiveness, offering a 50% reduction in API pricing while being much faster than its predecessors.

Where GPT-4o truly shines is in its enhanced vision and audio understanding capabilities, outperforming existing models in these areas.

Its ability to seamlessly process and generate different data formats like text, audio, and images enables more natural and intuitive interactions, effectively bridging the gap between how humans and computers traditionally communicate.

GPT-4o Capabilities

Prior to GPT-4o, users could interact with ChatGPT through Voice Mode, which relied on a multi-step process involving separate models for different tasks.

One model would transcribe audio inputs into text, another model (either GPT-3.5 or GPT-4) would process the transcribed text and generate a text response, and a third model would convert that text response back into audio output.

This process resulted in average latencies of 2.8 seconds for GPT-3.5 and 5.4 seconds for GPT-4.

However, this multi-model approach had limitations. The core language model (GPT-3.5 or GPT-4) could not directly process audio cues like tone, multiple speakers, or background noises.

Similarly, it could not generate audio outputs that conveyed human-like qualities such as laughter, singing, or emotional expression.

In contrast, GPT-4o is a single, end-to-end model that has been trained to process and generate text, visual, and audio data seamlessly.

This integrated approach allows GPT-4o to process all input modalities and produce outputs in various formats using the same neural network.

As GPT-4o is the first model to combine these multiple modalities, OpenAI is still exploring the full extent of its capabilities and potential limitations.

Key Features

Better than Existing Models:

GPT-4o excels at understanding and discussing images compared to existing models.

For instance, you can now take a picture of a menu written in a foreign language and share it with GPT-4o. The model will not only translate the menu but also provide insights into the cultural significance and history of the dishes listed. Additionally, GPT-4o can offer personalized recommendations based on the menu items.

In the future, GPT-4o will receive improvements enabling more natural, real-time voice conversations. Users will be able to converse with ChatGPT through real-time video feeds. For example, you could live-stream a sports game to ChatGPT and ask the model to explain the rules and gameplay to you in real-time.

OpenAI plans to introduce a new Voice Mode feature that incorporates these advanced capabilities. This Voice Mode will initially be available as an alpha release in the coming weeks, with early access granted to Plus users. Over time, the company aims to roll out this feature more broadly to all users.

Unified Processing Model:

GPT-4o can handle text, audio, and visual inputs and outputs seamlessly, enabling natural and multimodal interactions.

Conversational AI:

GPT-4o enables natural dialogue and real-time conversational speech recognition without noticeable lag.

Emotional Intelligence:

The model can perceive emotions from audio inputs and generate expressive synthesized speech output.

Visual Understanding:

GPT-4o can engage with images, documents, and charts during conversations, integrating visual understanding into its responses.

Multilingual Support:

The model offers multilingual capabilities with real-time translation across languages.

Emotion Detection:

GPT-4o can detect emotions from facial expressions in visual inputs.

Access and Availability

Free users will have access to GPT-4o's advanced capabilities, providing GPT-4-level intelligence.

Paid users will have higher usage limits, with up to 80 messages every 3 hours on GPT-4o and up to 40 messages every 3 hours on GPT-4 (limits may be reduced during peak hours).

GPT-4o is available through an API, allowing developers to build applications at scale.

Compared to the previous Turbo model, GPT-4o is 2x faster, 50% more cost-effective, and offers 5x higher rate limits.

While the standard GPT-4o text mode is already rolling out to Plus users, the new Voice Mode will be available in alpha in the coming weeks, initially accessible to Plus users, with plans to expand availability to free users later.

ChatGPT Desktop App for macOS

Alongside the launch of GPT-4o, OpenAI is introducing a new ChatGPT desktop application for macOS users, available to both free and paid subscribers. This dedicated app is designed to seamlessly integrate with your daily computer workflows.

One of the key features of the ChatGPT desktop app is its accessibility through a simple keyboard shortcut. By pressing Option + Space, you can instantly summon the app and ask ChatGPT a question, without the need to switch between different windows or applications.

ChatGPT Desktop App for macOS

Additionally, the app allows you to capture and discuss screenshots directly within its interface. This functionality enables you to easily share visual information with ChatGPT and receive contextual responses or insights related to the captured screen content.

Voice Mode

The new ChatGPT desktop app introduces the ability to engage in voice conversations with the language model directly from your computer.

This feature builds upon the existing Voice Mode available in the web-based ChatGPT interface since its initial launch. In the future, the app will also incorporate GPT-4o's advanced audio and video capabilities.

To initiate a voice conversation, simply tap the headphone icon located in the bottom-right corner of the desktop app.

ChatGPT Headphone Icon
ChatGPT Headphone Icon

This functionality opens up a wide range of use cases, whether you want to brainstorm ideas for your company, prepare for an upcoming interview, or discuss any topic of interest through natural spoken dialogue.

The initial rollout of the macOS app started on May 13, 2024, targeting Plus subscribers. A broader rollout to all users, including non-subscribers, will occur in the upcoming weeks. A Windows version of the desktop app is planned for release later in this year.

Key Takeaways

  1. GPT-4o ("o" for "omni") is OpenAI's new flagship AI model that represents a significant advancement in enabling more natural and intuitive interactions between humans and computer systems.
  2. Unlike previous models that relied on separate components for different modalities, GPT-4o is a single, end-to-end model trained to process and generate text, visual, and audio data seamlessly using the same neural network.
  3. GPT-4o matches GPT-4 Turbo's performance on text in English and code but demonstrates significant improvements in handling text in non-English languages, while also being faster and more cost-effective.
  4. The model excels at understanding and discussing images, providing insights into cultural significance, history, and personalized recommendations based on visual inputs.
  5. GPT-4o can respond to audio inputs with extremely low latency, similar to human response times in conversations, enabling more natural and seamless audio interactions.
  6. OpenAI is introducing a new ChatGPT desktop app for macOS, initially rolling out to Plus subscribers, with plans for a broader release and a Windows version later in the year.
  7. The desktop app features a convenient keyboard shortcut for instantly accessing ChatGPT and the ability to capture and discuss screenshots directly within the app.
  8. Voice conversation capabilities are being introduced, allowing users to engage with ChatGPT through natural spoken dialogue, with future integration of GPT-4o's advanced audio and video capabilities.

Conclusion

OpenAI's GPT-4o and the new ChatGPT desktop app mark a major advancement in enabling more seamless and natural human-AI interactions.

GPT-4o brings advanced multimodal AI capabilities to the masses for free. It's unified, multimodal architecture allows it to process text, visuals, and audio inputs and outputs through a single model, bridging the communication gap between humans and machines.

The ChatGPT official desktop app, with features like voice access and screenshot integration, aims to streamline the integration of this powerful AI into daily workflows.

For more details, I recommend you to check the official announcements in the following links.

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