OpenAI has announced the general release of API access to ChatGPT and their ‘Whisper’, which is an automatic speech recognition (ASR) AI model.
What Does This Mean?
An API is a set of protocols, routines, and tools for building software applications that specify how software components should interact with each other. In simpler terms, an API is a way for different software applications to communicate with each other and share data.
OpenAI is an AI research lab which has developed a number of powerful AI models, including the ChatGPT and Whisper models. Whisper is an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system that enables transcription in multiple languages, as well as translation from those languages into English.
By making the ChatGPT and Whisper models available on its API, OpenAI is allowing developers and other users to access these models and integrate them into their own applications.
What’s The Benefit Of This To Developers?
This means that developers can now use these models to generate natural language text, perform language tasks such as text classification or sentiment analysis (and more), without having to build their own models from scratch. By providing access to these models through an API, OpenAI is making it easier for developers to create powerful AI applications that leverage the latest advances in AI technology using just a few lines of code to do so. With the ChatGPT and Whisper models available on its API, companies will find it more accessible and affordable to add AI capabilities to applications, and having access to Whisper will allow developers to add voice interfaces to a much wider set of applications.
Open AI says “Developers can now use our open-source Whisper large-v2 model in the API with much faster and cost-effective results. ChatGPT API users can expect continuous model improvements and the option to choose dedicated capacity for deeper control over the models.”
Popular Apps Already Using ChatGPT API
Examples of some of the popular apps already using the ChatGPT API include Shop, and Shopify’s commerce app which uses it to improve the accuracy of in-app searches and personalised product suggestions for users.
Opportunity
Some tech commentators have also highlighted how the general release of API access to these models could provide real commercial opportunities to (up until now) hobbyist developers. This could trigger a wave of new software development which could ultimately benefit many businesses in terms of added efficiency, cost and time savings.
Change To Data Retention Policy Could Help
The recent change to OpenAI’s data retention policy, whereby it will now only retain users’ data for 30 days and promises not to use data that input to train its models, could also provide the reassurance needed for more companies to try ChatGPT. This could further fuel the rise in software incorporating these powerful AI models.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
For OpenAI, this API offering is another move towards the full monetisation of ChatGPT, which OpenAI needs to do in order to keep running its expensive AI models. Making ChatGPT (and Whisper) available on its API means greater opportunities for developers and companies to develop more powerful apps that utilise the cutting edge of AI in a relatively easy and affordable way. This could make the app market much more competitive, and we could see AI being used in many more areas of our lives. For businesses of all kinds, this could open the door to the introduction of value adding, efficiency-improving and cost saving apps that could improve competitiveness.