OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT plugins that let chatbot browse internet

San Francisco, March 24

Microsoft-owned OpenAI has launched plugins for ChatGPT that allow the chatbot to access third-party knowledge sources and databases, including the web.

The company said that it will start providing access to plugins with a small set of users and plan to gradually roll out larger-scale access as they learn more.

"Today, we will begin extending plugin alpha access to users and developers from our waitlist. While we will initially prioritise a small number of developers and ChatGPT Plus users, we plan to roll out larger-scale access over time," OpenAI said in a blogpost.

Moreover, the company said, it will also begin extending plugin alpha access to users and developers from their waitlist.

According to the company, plugins are tools designed specifically for language models with safety as a core principle and help ChatGPT access up-to-date information, run computations, or use third-party services.

It added, saying: "Plugins can be 'eyes and ears' for language models, giving them access to information that is too recent, too personal, or too specific to be included in the training data."

Plugins can also enable language models to perform safe, constrained actions on a user's behalf in response to an explicit request, increasing the system's overall usefulness.

OpenAI also mentioned that it will roll out the ability for developers to create their own plugins for ChatGPT.