GPT-4 Is Here: Can Travel Companies Keep Up With Fast-Advancing AI?

25.08.2023 - 13:56 / skift.com / Glenn Fogel / Justin Dawes / Rob Francis / Generative Ai

Since OpenAI released the groundbreaking ChatGPT tech late last year, travel companies have been exploring how the latest developments in generative AI could change the way they operate.

Only three and a half months later, OpenAI released an update of the technology called GPT-4. Among several notable updates, the last version of ChatGPT can accept images, not just text, and describe them in detail. It can also score in roughly the top 10 percent of students on the Uniform Bar Examination. The latest version, called ChatGPT Plus, requires a $20 monthly subscription for access. 

With all the work companies have been doing with the previous version of ChatGPT, the question now is what’s next for them, especially for startups that have dedicated all their resources to creating products using that first version. And if significant updates continue at this rate, how soon before products made with old versions of the tech become obsolete and need to be totally revamped? 

The application programming interface (API) for GPT-4 is not yet publicly available, but there’s a waitlist. Some companies have access to the latest version, including Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in the company. 

OpenAI is testing the updated tech with Be My Eyes, an app that wants to increase accessibility for blind and low-vision people. With the image input capability, the updated app could “answer any question about that image and provide instantaneous visual assistance for a wide variety of tasks,” Be My Eyes said in a blog post. 

Based on the implications it made about the potential of the technology, it’s easy to see how it could benefit the greater population, travelers included. Imagine being able to take a photo of a building or neighborhood, for example, and getting a detailed description about the history or events taking place there — the image input capability paves the way for that, theoretically.

“Imagine navigating a train system in an unfamiliar place, traveling in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language, browsing websites and social media platforms, online shopping, and a host of other ways we know our community will help us identify — the possibilities are limitless, and we’re just getting started,” the post stated. 

With rapid advancement of the technology, maybe the slow research and development approach that large travel companies are taking will be the best method in the long run. 

Glenn Fogel, the CEO of Booking Holdings, highlighted the company’s approach in a recent Linkedin post that spoke to the technology’s potential and acknowledged its shortcomings. 

His comments were similar to the stance by Rob Francis, chief technology officer of Booking.com. His counterpart at Expedia