ChatGPT is a great tool, but its major drawback is that the GPT-3 language model in the AI chatbot is outdated. Therefore, one of the main advantages of using the new Bing with ChatGPT is that the search engine's chatbot AI is powered by the new GPT-3.5 model. Currently, the GPT technology behind ChatGPT and the new Bing is undergoing a major upgrade.

According to Heise (opens in new tab) (original in German), Microsoft announced this upgrade at an AI event in Germany, titled "AI in Focus - Digital Kickoff. CTO Andreas Braun divulged that he would be surprised if GPT-4 does not roll out next week and eventually super-enhance the existing functionality of the Bing chatbot.

The biggest upgrade to this new GPT model appears to be multimodal capabilities. Brown specifically mentions video, but if GPT-4 is truly a multimodal model, it should be able to handle text, images, video, and audio.

If so, Bing, which just gained 100 million active users, could continue to expand its market share and challenge Google with these new features that Google Bard AI is still largely hiding.

Microsoft has highlighted what it can do with GPT-4, and it looks promising. One example provided by Holger Ken, director of business strategy at Microsoft Germany, was that GPT-4's multimodal capabilities allow call centers to automatically convert phone conversations into text. Then, after the customer hangs up, GPT-4 can summarize the call, greatly reducing post-call work.

Microsoft apparently did not mention the new Bing at the event, perhaps because of the recent controversy over Bing's chatbot going off the deep end. As for me, the first thing that comes to mind is to take a picture and ask the new Bing to describe what it is. Bing could then not only answer the question by comparing that image to the search results, but also provide additional context about the photo.

Although this was a Microsoft event, the underlying GPT technology is still owned by OpenAI. Therefore, it would be surprising if GPT-4 is not eventually deployed in OpenAI products as well.

However, given that ChatGPT is a free research preview, there is no guarantee that the much-used ChatGPT will be upgraded; OpenAI has recently announced an API, a paid version of ChatGPT called ChatGPT Plus, which will be available for free in the future, or a ChatGPT app rumored to possibly have multimodal capabilities (opens in new tab), which could be reserved for it. Still, it would be a surprise if the public version of ChatGPT does not eventually get this new model. [If you haven't used ChatGPT yet, check out our guide on how to use ChatGPT.