ChatGPT has undergone significant development in the past few months. One of the most notable changes is the introduction of plug-ins. These plug-ins allow ChatGPT to access web data, which was previously not possible. Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, is used to browse the internet with ChatGPT. The plug-ins have been well-received by users, as they allow for more accurate and up-to-date information to be provided by ChatGPT. Currently there are over 600 plugins covering a huge subject area. I find the ones which are most useful for information professionals are those which access online bibliographic databases such as ScholarAI. This also means that ChatGPT is only going to use information from a site that’s already been checked and is of high quality, so there shouldn’t be any hallucinations. However, what makes this even better is that you can then ask ChatGPT to summarise any of the papers that it has found using the plugin and manipulate the data returned.

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Another significant development is the ability to browse the internet. This feature was introduced in September 2023 and is available for paying subscribers. Before this feature was introduced, users were unable to access up-to-date information through ChatGPT, which had been limited to data available online up to September 2021 2. The feature allows users to browse the internet with Bing and access more accurate and up-to-date information. While it’s useful, I generally prefer using the Bing Chat facility as I prefer the answers that I can, and I can also use all of the other AI functionality that the search engine provides.

ChatGPT now also has the ability to upload files for it to work with, called Advanced Data Analysis. This feature was introduced in August 2023 and allows users to upload files such as images or text documents for ChatGPT to analyze and provide relevant information. So for example you could upload a spreadsheet of user data and get ChatGPT to interrogate the information and provide multiple types of reports and produce information in various different graphs.

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There has been some exciting news regarding Dall-E, OpenAI’s image-generating AI model. Dall-E has been integrated into ChatGPT, allowing users to generate images directly from within the chatbot. This integration has been well-received by users and has opened up new possibilities for creative content generation. I’ve played around with it and have had some good visual responses. It's not quite as good as some of the other tools that I’ve tried, but it’s certainly worth giving it a go.

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In addition to these developments, there have been some other changes that are worth mentioning. For example, ChatGPT now has a voice recognition feature that allows users to interact with it using voice commands. This feature is still in beta testing but has shown promising results so far.

I’ve also used ChatGPT on my mobile ‘out in the wild’ as it were. I took a photograph of some trees and asked ChatGPT to tell me what they were. It gave a guess, but said that it could be more precise if I could take a photograph of the leaves. I did, and it was able to immediately identify the type of tree that I was looking at. This is the power of the Chatbot – it’s not just that it can work with images but it can provide you with ideas and suggestions on how to get better results by taking specific images.

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Another new feature is multi-language support. ChatGPT can now communicate fluently in multiple languages such as English, 中文, 日本語, Español, Français, Deutsch, and others. This feature has been highly requested by users who speak languages other than English.

Finally, there have been some improvements made to ChatGPT’s user interface. The interface is now more intuitive and user-friendly than ever before 3. This makes it easier for users to navigate through the chatbot and find the information they need.

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These developments have made ChatGPT a more powerful tool for information professionals and librarians. With the ability to browse the internet, access more accurate and up-to-date information, and generate images using Dall-E, ChatGPT is now better equipped than ever before to provide relevant and useful information.