OpenAI’s ChatGPT Maker to Increase Model Performance and Reduce Costs: Report

ChatGPT maker OpenAI is expected to announce product improvements that will make its AI models cheaper and more functional at its first developer conference on Monday.

The conference will mark OpenAI’s push to expand beyond consumer sensation into a successful developer platform provider, and CEO Sam Altman has teased attendees with the promise of “some cool new stuff.”

The one-day event in a deserted area of San Francisco near City Hall attracts hundreds of developers from around the world. The growing AI sector has been a bright spot for San Francisco’s economy, which has struggled to recover from the pandemic.

Toiling in relative obscurity for years, OpenAI kicked off the generative AI craze last November with the release of ChatGPT, a chatbot beloved by Silicon Valley that became one of the world’s fastest-growing consumer apps. Generative AI can use previous data to create brand new content, such as fully formed text, images, and software code.

Backed by billions of dollars from Microsoft, OpenAI has become the default version of generative AI for many, helping users draft term books, contracts, travel plans, and even entire novels.

OpenAI is expected to announce updates focused on cutting costs for developers as well as new vision capabilities, Reuters previously reported. The cost cuts address a major concern for partners, whose expenses for OpenAI’s powerful models can add up quickly as they try to build a sustainable business developing and selling AI software.

The Visio capabilities that enable OpenAI’s software to analyze and describe images allow developers to build new uses in the fields of entertainment and medicine.

Another announcement could be the ability to fine-tune the GPT-4, its most advanced AI model, which the company previously said would arrive in the fall.

These updates are designed to encourage companies to use OpenAI’s technology to build AI-based chatbots and autonomous agents that can perform tasks without human intervention. Making OpenAI indispensable to other companies building apps is one of Altman’s top strategic goals, sources familiar with his thinking said.