OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has launched API for the viral chatbot so that developers can use its features in their apps.
The company made this announcement some days ago when it launched APIs for ChatGPT and Whisper, thereby giving developers access to cutting-edge language (not just chat!) and speech-to-text capabilities.
As at December 2022, ChatGPT had an estimated more than 100 million monthly active users even though it only became accessible to the general public in November 2022.
This is a boost for the company as it pushes for revenue in maintaining the operations of the ChatGPT platform which is still free to many users.
According to Greg Brockman, the president and chairman of OpenAI (and also one of the co-founders), its intention has always been to provide an API. He also said that the ChatGPT API is powered by the same AI model behind OpenAI’s wildly popular ChatGPT, dubbed “gpt-3.5-turbo.”
The ChatGPT API is currently priced at $0.002 per 1,000 tokens, or about 750 words and it can drive a range of experiences, including “non-chat” applications.
Some of the early adopters of the ChatGPT API include Snap, Quizlet, Instacart and Shopify.
Snap’s My AI, which was introduced some days ago, is running on ChatGPT and it is already offering it on an “experimental” basis only to $3.99 per month Snapchat Plus subscribers.
For the past three years, Quizlet has collaborated with OpenAI, utilizing GPT-3 for various purposes such as vocabulary learning and practice tests. As the ChatGPT API is now available, Quizlet is introducing Q-Chat, an AI tutor that is fully adaptive and interacts with students through a fun chat interface. Q-Chat poses adaptive questions related to the study materials, making the learning experience engaging and interactive.
Instacart is augmenting the Instacart app to enable customers to ask about food and get inspirational, shoppable answers. This uses ChatGPT alongside Instacart’s own AI and product data from their 75,000+ retail partner store locations to help customers discover ideas for open-ended shopping goals.
Shopify is using ChatGPT to power Shop’s new shopping assistant to streamline in-app shopping by scanning millions of products to quickly find what buyers are looking for—or help them discover something new.
OpenAI remarked that Whisper, the speech-to-text model it open-sourced in September 2022, has received immense praise from the developer community but can also be hard to run. It has now made the large-v2 model available through the API, which gives convenient on-demand access priced at $0.006 / minute. In addition, its highly-optimized serving stack ensures faster performance compared to other services.
