Author HubMatthias Bastian
O2? Can't do! OpenAI has confirmed it will bypass the name "o2" for its next reasoning model to avoid trademark conflicts with British telecommunications giant O2. Instead, the company will jump straight to "o3" for its next release. The company is currently investing heavily in developing the o-series, its first "reasoning" models. To support this work, OpenAI is developing a new large language model called "Orion" that will generate synthetic training data, according to The Information. Microsoft's Phi-4 model recently demonstrated the effectiveness of incorporating synthetic data in AI training, at least in achieving impressive benchmark results. Interestingly, Sébastien Bubeck, who helped create the Phi series at Microsoft, has since joined OpenAI's team.
AI answer company Perplexity has acquired Carbon, a startup specializing in connectors that link external data sources to LLMs. The acquisition aims to let Perplexity users directly connect services like Notion and Google Docs to their AI search interface. As part of the deal, Carbon's entire team will join Perplexity to accelerate the development of these integration features. The acquisition highlights a growing pattern in the AI industry, where major platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity are converging to offer similar solutions: chat interfaces that combine Internet access with connections to users' personal data sources. Beyond the big players, there are a myriad of B2B AI solutions doing similar things.
OpenAI is making ChatGPT more accessible by letting users interact with the AI assistant through phone calls and WhatsApp messages. U.S. users can now call ChatGPT for free at 1-800-242-8478, with a monthly limit of 15 minutes of conversation time. The phone service works with any device, including landlines and basic mobile phones, eliminating the need for a smartphone or internet connection to access ChatGPT. For users worldwide, OpenAI has added WhatsApp support, allowing anyone to chat with ChatGPT by saving the service's number as a contact. Currently, the WhatsApp integration only supports text messages, though OpenAI plans to add authentication features that will enable advanced capabilities like image recognition. The company says it developed these new features during an internal hackathon and implemented them in just a few weeks.
Google has started rolling out an experimental version of its Gemini 2.0 AI model to users of Gemini Advanced. The new model, called Gemini-Exp-1206, can handle more sophisticated tasks, including complex coding challenges, mathematical problem-solving, and advanced reasoning, according to Google. The company stresses that this experimental model is still in early preview testing and may not perform consistently. The model can't access real-time information and doesn't support all of Gemini's standard features. Access to Gemini-Exp-1206 is currently limited to Gemini Advanced subscribers using either desktop computers or mobile Web browsers. The new model may be a preview of an upcoming larger Gemini 2.0 Pro model, as Google has already officially released the smaller Gemini 2.0 Flash version.