OpenAI introduced an official phone number for ChatGPT on Wednesday. People in eligible regions can make call this number to access the company's chatbot and interact with it verbally. Additionally, people residing in the rest of the world can save the contact and text it on WhatsApp to talk to the generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. Currently, voice call time is capped at 15 minutes per month, but the AI firm stated that this might be changed in the future.
OpenAI Now Lets People Make Phone Calls to ChatGPT
In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), OpenAI announced the new phone number for ChatGPT. The number was marketed as the vanity phone number 1-800-ChatGPT (+1-800-242-8478). Vanity phone numbers follow letters on a keypad (A, B, and C refer to 2; D, E, and F refer to 3, and so on) to make a number easily memorable. The ‘800' code means the number is toll-free and callers will not have to bear the cost. This feature is currently only available in Canada and the US.
OpenAI highlighted that people will only get 15 minutes of call time per month at the moment. The company can, however, change availability and limits in the future. Those residing outside of the above mentioned countries can still access ChatGPT via the phone number, but only on WhatsApp.
After saving the number, WhatsApp users can send messages to ChatGPT the same way they would on the official app or the website. Currently, the WhatsApp extension of the chatbot only supports text as input and output. Additionally, other features such as Search, Canvas, and image generation via DALL-E will also not be available on WhatsApp or phone calls.
Notably, OpenAI stated that the phone call feature does not require smartphones and the feature works the same way on feature phones.
OpenAI has been aggressively pushing to make ChatGPT the default AI chatbot platform for people. The company already partners with Microsoft and Apple to offer its large language models (LLMs). ChatGPT has also been rolled out to Windows and MacOS this year. The latest move is likely an attempt by the AI firm to target the rural demographic that either does not have a lot of data to spend or has yet to experience the chatbot.
