OpenAI brings ChatGPT to landlines

SAN FRANCISCO -- ChatGPT is coming to landline telephones while OpenAI's artificial intelligence-powered assistant will respond as of Wednesday afternoon, the company said.

The experience is more or less identical to Advanced Voice Mode, OpenAI's real-time conversational feature for ChatGPT. ChatGPT responds to the questions users ask over the phone and can handle tasks such as translating a sentence into a different language, according to the company.

OpenAI is offering 15 minutes of free calling for US users. The company noted that standard carrier fees may apply.

Beginning Wednesday, ChatGPT is also available on WhatsApp for those who prefer to text the artificial intelligence assistant.

As with ChatGPT over the phone, users don't need an account for the WhatsApp experience. Users will get a notice as they approach a daily limit.

"OpenAI is to make artificial general intelligence beneficial to all of humanity, and part of that is making it as accessible as possible to as many people as we can," OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil said during a livestream. "Today, we're taking the next step and bringing ChatGPT to your telephone."

"The team built this just a few weeks ago, and we loved it... We're just getting started making ChatGPT more accessible to all of you," Weil said.