ChatGPT’s biggest drawback so far was the fact that it could not browse the internet or draw information in real-time. All the information fetched and displayed by ChatGPT was limited to knowledge before September 2021. However, OpenAI has confirmed that ChatGPT will now be able to surf the internet in real time. The new feature is currently only available to Plus and Enterprise users via GPT-4 but OpenAI promises to bring the web browsing abilities of ChatGPT to all users.

“Browsing is available to Plus and Enterprise users today, and we’ll expand to all users soon. To enable, choose Browse with Bing in the selector under GPT-4,” OpenAI said in a post on social media platform X.

ChatGPT can now browse the internet to provide you with current and authoritative information, complete with direct links to sources. It is no longer limited to data before September 2021. pic.twitter.com/pyj8a9HWkB

— OpenAI (@OpenAI) September 27, 2023

Commenting on the revival of ChatGPT’s browsing abilities on X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote, “we are so back”.

On a related note, the startup also announced a major update earlier this week that would enable ChatGPT to have voice conversations with users and interact with them using images, moving it closer to popular AI assistants like Apple’s Siri. After the latest update, ChatGPT now possesses the ability to answer queries of users in five different voices, giving tough competition to the voice assistants by tech giants like Apple and Google. Imagine you are traveling and you see an interesting landmark. Instead of just looking at it, you can take a picture and then start a live conversation with ChatGPT about what makes that landmark special. Similarly, you may take photographs of the items in your fridge and pantry so that you can refer to them later on when you are at home and unsure of what to cook for dinner. You may use ChatGPT to determine what recipes you can prepare using those items.