On the tenth day of OpenAI's live broadcast, ChatGPT's free hotline was launched. OpenAI announced the integration of ChatGPT into the mobile communication field, encouraging users to add ChatGPT to their contact lists so they could interact with it via voice calls. This feature supports a variety of devices, including smartphones, flip phones for the elderly, and retro landlines that do not require WiFi.

This move is part of ChatGPT's growth strategy. "OpenAI's mission is to make general artificial intelligence accessible to all of humanity, and part of that is to make it available to as many people as possible," said Kevin Weil, OpenAI's Chief Product Officer, during the live broadcast. "Today, we've taken a new step by bringing ChatGPT to the phone."

This feature was also described as a "hack project" by Weil, who mentioned that the team had just completed it a few weeks prior. According to the 2023 Mobile Internet Connectivity Report by the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), 54% of the global population, approximately 4.3 billion people, own smartphones. This means that a significant portion of the population still does not use smartphones. By supporting multiple devices, ChatGPT has successfully tapped into a new market, a first in the AI industry.

The experience is similar to ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode, both featuring real-time conversation capabilities but without multimodal support. Users can ask questions over the phone, and ChatGPT will respond and handle tasks such as translating sentences.

Additionally, starting today, ChatGPT can also be accessed through WhatsApp, catering to users who prefer text-based interactions with AI assistants. This is a simple question-and-answer interaction, but since it is on the WhatsApp platform, users do not have access to the customization options available in the official ChatGPT app.

A representative netizen's opinion highlights several key points:

Introducing ChatGPT to the phone and WhatsApp platforms aims to attract people who have not yet used ChatGPT, expanding its user base (the Chief Technology Officer previously mentioned a goal of one billion users per year).

Sam Altman understands the importance of distribution channels. He knows that success is not just about having the best model, but also about making it easily accessible to everyone. ChatGPT should become a household name and a tool available to all.

The primary target audience today is likely to be elderly users.

Promoting ChatGPT on WhatsApp is a challenge for Meta, as WhatsApp is Meta's asset and Meta itself has introduced the Llama model on WhatsApp. However, OpenAI's goal is to make ChatGPT the preferred choice for users.

Just as Google has become synonymous with search, ChatGPT should become the representative of AI. It should be available anytime, anywhere, and even without the internet, becoming an irreplaceable medium.

The phone version of ChatGPT may use the 4o-mini model to save inference costs while maintaining low latency. However, OpenAI has not yet confirmed whether it will introduce a larger-scale model.

The focus today is on distribution and market share, making ChatGPT the choice for everyone. It is evident that competition among AI models is intensifying, with companies vying to expand their influence.

OpenAI's Multi-Faceted Publicity Campaign and Generous Year-End Bonuses

With the release of ChatGPT, every move made by OpenAI has attracted the close attention of the global tech community. Starting from December 5th, OpenAI launched a 12-day "release season," unveiling new products or features on each weekday. In the past nine days, as the leader in the AI field, every move has had a significant impact on the entire industry:

Day 1: OpenAI released the new language model ChatGPT o1, which performs better in mathematics and science, providing more accurate answers. It also launched the ChatGPT Pro subscription service, priced at $200 per month.

Day 2: OpenAI introduced AI Reinforcement Fine-Tuning for developers, a method to optimize AI model inference capabilities and enhance performance.

Day 3: OpenAI released the AI video generation tool Sora. However, its creation functions are somewhat restricted for users who have not subscribed to ChatGPT Pro.

Day 4: OpenAI launched the new Canvas feature for ChatGPT, making code and text processing more efficient and providing various practical writing tools.

Day 5: OpenAI announced the integration of ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence, officially launching it as part of iOS 18.2. Unfortunately, ChatGPT crashed immediately after its release.

Day 6: The Advanced Voice Mode of ChatGPT added visual capabilities, enabling it to recognize content on the screen and identify users.

Day 7: OpenAI focused on optimizing ChatGPT's organizational capabilities, introducing the Projects function to better organize and manage ChatGPT conversations.

Day 8: OpenAI rolled out the conversational search function ChatGPT Search to all ChatGPT accounts, integrating it into the Advanced Voice Mode and significantly improving mobile response speed.

Day 9: OpenAI introduced a series of functional upgrades and tools for developers, opening the full o1 model API, supporting function calls, developer messages, structured output, and visual functions, while reducing inference costs by 60%.

Before the 12-day release event, OpenAI disclosed the latest data: ChatGPT currently has 300 million active users per week, with over 10 billion messages sent daily. Additionally, in the United States, 1.3 million developers are building applications on the OpenAI platform.

In the past ten days, OpenAI's publicity campaign was not only about product releases. In a recent podcast, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella proudly stated, "The advantage we have with OpenAI is that we have had two years of development time—(during which) there was hardly any competition."

On December 13th, Forbes published an article supporting OpenAI, stating that based on ChatGPT's growth trend, although currently only 16.45% of traditional search engine users are using ChatGPT, considering that we are still in the early stages of ChatGPT and OpenAI's development, Forbes believes this trend has significant long-term potential and may gradually shift in favor of OpenAI. This shift could pose the biggest long-term threat to Google's business.

On December 18th, just before the holiday season, OpenAI gave its employees a big gift: approximately 400 employees had the opportunity to earn millions of dollars through a stock deal with SoftBank.

According to Fortune magazine, SoftBank plans to purchase up to $1.6 billion worth of shares from eligible shareholders, who must have obtained restricted stock units more than two years ago to participate in the deal. OpenAI currently has over 2,000 employees. For eligible employees, this is undoubtedly a substantial "year-end bonus."

Insiders revealed that all eligible current employees can cash in up to $10 million worth of stocks. This is set to become a new wealth myth in the IT industry.

Thanks to a Marketing Mastermind?

When discussing OpenAI's success, people often focus on the contributions of technical experts like Ilya Sutskever or the exceptional leadership of figures like Sam Altman. It is undeniable that strong technical capabilities are the foundation of OpenAI. However, Sam's ability to leverage his connections, resources, and media acumen to ensure that the products stand out and receive the necessary attention and resources is a crucial soft power that has driven OpenAI's success.

OpenAI's "12-Day Release" event was undoubtedly a meticulously planned marketing feast. By continuously releasing new products, OpenAI successfully created a sense of urgency, making people feel that the development of AI technology is rapidly evolving and that those who fall behind will be left out.

Delving into the strategy behind it, it is not difficult to see that Sam Altman plays a key role. He is like a walking marketing machine, always able to seize the right moments and attract attention in the most eye-catching ways, pushing OpenAI to the forefront of public discourse.

One of Sam Altman's marketing strategies is to steal the spotlight. OpenAI seems to have a backlog of products to release, but it does not rush to do so. However, when other companies announce significant news, such as content that causes a stir on Reddit or Product Hunt, Sam will choose to release his own announcements on the same day or the day before, thus capturing all the attention and buzz.

During OpenAI's "12-Day Release" event, Google still released Gemini 2.0 as scheduled on December 12th, offering a chat version for global users. Subsequently, on December 16th, it officially launched the latest video generation model Veo 2, which many people believe has "surpassed Sora" in actual testing.

The competition between OpenAI and Google has become one of the most eye-catching duels in the AI field.

Sam's strategic focus on tech giants is clear. His marketing strategies and the timing of his announcements are largely aimed at these major companies. In contrast, his "neglect" of smaller labs like Anthropic seems more like a strategic disdain.

This is similar to a "king's mentality" in the industry. If OpenAI were to "target" smaller AI labs (such as Anthropic or Cohere), it would not only give these smaller labs more attention but also make OpenAI seem like it is bullying the weak. In comparison, targeting "unpopular" tech giants (such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, or Amazon) makes OpenAI appear more like a "Robin Hood" figure, which is more favorable in the eyes of the public.