Support our independent tech coverage. Chrome Unboxed is written by real people, for real people—not search algorithms. Join Chrome Unboxed Plus for just $2 a month to get an ad-free experience, access to our private Discord, and more. Learn more about membership here.
START FREE TRIAL (MONTHLY)START FREE TRIAL (ANNUAL)
Have you seen it yet? Yesterday, OpenAI launched ChatGPT-4o (the “o” is for “omni”) and the examples and results are staggering. We’re talking next-gen AI, here, and the practical applications are just beginning to take shape for all those encountering the ChatGPT-4o news this morning.
I’m a bit at a loss for words, honestly, but I can’t help but think Google might be scrambling a bit as Google I/O 2024 is set to kick off in just under an hour. If they don’t have something equally amazing to showcase in the world of AI, OpenAI may have already stolen the show.
There’s no way for them to even fake something this spectacular if they don’t already have it in the works, so I’m hopeful they knew about all this way before all of us saw it yesterday and this morning. Otherwise, there’s a big chance the keynote starts at 1PM EDT and culminates in a bunch of people watching and shrugging their shoulders.
That’s how impressive this new GPT model is. From casual conversations to real-time camera interactions to amazing translation capabilities, ChatGPT-4o is a revelation that seems nearly impossible only 20 months since the world first learned of ChatGPT in the first place. I’m still sitting here just in awe of what I’m watching, so watch with me, won’t you?
This feels like the tip of the iceberg
Those are just 4 of the many videos OpenAI has shared of this all working in real time. And each video is staggering. For me, the one that gave me literal goosebumps was the video about the interview. The natural conversation, quick wit, and ability to instantly interact with what is being seen through the camera is mindbogglingly good.
And this is precisely why I’m concerned for Google right now. In matters of AI, this is all unlike anything we’ve seen in the space thus far, and it feels leaps and bounds ahead of what anyone else is doing. Does Google have anything close to this? Were they notified and prepared for this to drop yesterday?
I have no idea, but if they didn’t know it was coming, it could make for a very, very interesting I/O keynote this year. Small tweaks to Gemini and truly useful AI tools in Google’s services could be very helpful and practical, but none of that stuff has the wow factor that OpenAI just provided. For Google’s sake, I hope they have something up their sleeve today.
