This year, the generative AI race got more intense with Google and Microsoft unveiling their own AI chatbots, Bard and Bing respectively. And roughly a month back, Elon Musk introduced GrokAI. Now, reports say that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is planning to launch a platform where people can create their own AI chatbots. This is similar to OpenAI's GPT store, which is yet to launch.
ByteDance to rival ChatGPT
According to a South China Morning Post report, ByteDance is planning to launch a platform where users will be able to create their own generative AI chatbots. The platform might also launch by the end of this month, as a public beta version.
According to an internal memo sent to the company's employees, the upcoming platform would "allow the company to explore new generative AI products and how they can integrate with the existing ones."
If this is true, this will compete with OpenAI's recently-launched GPTs, which lets users create customised ChatGPT bots.
About GPT store
OpenAI is calling these custom ChatGPT chatbots GPTs. "We're rolling out custom versions of ChatGPT that you can create for a specific purpose—called GPTs," the company wrote on its blog and added that these GPTs can be built by anyone, without the need for any coding.
"You can make them for yourself, just for your company's internal use, or for everyone. Creating one is as easy as starting a conversation, giving it instructions and extra knowledge, and picking what it can do, like searching the web, making images or analyzing data," the blog post added.
As of now, these GPTs are available only for ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise users. However, OpenAI plans on offering GPTs to more users soon.
In the same blog post, OpenAI also announced launching a GPT store, that will have creations by verified users. Once your GPT is a part of the store, it will be searchable and might rank in the store.
OpenAI said that it will highlight useful GPTs in various categories. And based on how many people use their GPTs, the creators will earn money. Hence, more uses will mean more money for creators.
ChatGPT's recent free for all feature
OpenAI recently made the voice chat feature in ChatGPT free for all. Earlier, using voice chat to interact with ChatGPT was only available to users who were paying for the service. However, now, it is free for all users. Notably, the voice chat option is only available for ChatGPT mobile app users. The web version still doesn't give everyone the voice chat option.
To use the feature, simply head over to the ChatGPT mobile app and spot the headphone icon on the right, next to the prompt box. When you click on this icon for the first time, a pop-up describing the Chat with voice feature will show up. Now, click on choose a voice and select from various options available. This will let you control how ChatGPT sounds while talking to you. Once done, you will be able to interact with ChatGPT using your voice.