ChatGPT Just Got a Game-Changing Update — Here's What to Know It could be a risky one too.
By Amanda Breen Edited by Jessica Thomas
Google's Bard and Microsoft's new Bing have battled it out with OpenAI's ChatGPT for the spotlight in recent months, but the original AI contender just got a powerful update.
Until last week, ChatGPT pulled its information from training data ending around September 2021. But OpenAI's just-launched plugins allow the bot to access third-party knowledge sources and databases — including the web, TechCrunch reported.
Related: ChatGPT: What Is It and How Does It Work? | Entrepreneur
OpenAI will first prioritize a select number of developers and subscribers to its premium ChatGPT Plus plan before introducing larger-scale and API access, according to the company's site.
Of course, giving a chatbot web access doesn't come without some risk: WebGPT, an experimental system created in 2021 by OpenAI, at times quoted unreliable sources and drew from sites it anticipated users would find credible — whether they actually were or not.
Additionally, the update is another step in the direction toward a potential upending of traditional search engines like Google — which declared a "code red" upon ChatGPT's release, The New York Times reported.
Related: How Can Marketers Use ChatGPT? Here Are the Top 11 Uses.
Other companies like Expedia, Instacart, Kayak, Klarna, Spotify, Slack, OpenTable and Zapier have also rolled out plug-ins for ChatGPT; Zapier is a standout for its ability to complete a variety of productivity tasks via connections with apps like Google Sheets and Trello, per TechCrunch.
