Within two years, the generative AI chatbot ChatGPT from OpenAI has quickly risen to fame, becoming a household name comparable to products like the iPhone, Windows, and Google Search. The chatbot was released in November 2022, sparking a wave of AI creativity in text, images, and videos that captivated the public. Following its success, other companies like Meta, Google, Anthropic, and Adobe launched their own AI-powered tools to join the trend. Meta’s Llama model, released in February 2023, stands out as an open-source model, while Adobe’s Firefly focuses on image generation and editing. Despite the initial novelty wearing off, tech companies continue to innovate with powerful models and new functionalities.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, was founded in 2015 with a mission to make artificial general intelligence accessible to humanity. Initially a nonprofit organization, OpenAI evolved into a hybrid for-profit and nonprofit organization in 2019 to acquire the resources needed for AGI development. The company is based in San Francisco, with CEO Sam Altman leading the charge. OpenAI has released various language models in its GPT family, including GPT-4o and GPT-4o Mini, which power ChatGPT. In addition to language models, OpenAI has developed text-to-image models like Dall-E and is working on a text-to-video model called Sora.
ChatGPT operates by generating responses to user prompts using generative AI technology. Users can request information, write code, or even seek advice from the chatbot in plain English. OpenAI trains its models using publicly available data, licensed information, and user input while filtering out undesirable content like hate speech and spam. The latest GPT models, GPT-4o and GPT-4o Mini, offer improved capabilities in understanding and generating text, audio, image, and video inputs.
In addition to language models and chatbots, OpenAI has developed text-to-image models like Dall-E and is exploring text-to-video models like Sora. APIs are available for developers to create custom AI applications using OpenAI technology. OpenAI is also testing a search engine prototype called SearchGPT, which generates answers to questions with links to online sources. The company’s leadership team includes CEO Sam Altman, entrepreneur Elon Musk, machine learning expert Ilya Sutskever, and others.