For the 10th day of OpenAIThe “12 Days of Shipmas” event, the company decided to go a little old school by launching a phone number for people to call and talk to ChatGPT.

US-based users can call 1-800-ChatGPT (1-800-242-8478) on any device that can make calls — including a rotary phone — as OpenAI demonstrated in its live stream . If you have an international number, you can message ChatGPT using WhatsApp.

It seems strange that ChatGPT, which has a web version, mobile apps on iOS and Android, and desktop applications for MacOS and Windows, will require a phone number to query ChatGPT. But OpenAI explains that the feature is good for those who don’t have a constant data connection.

Deploy AI wherever it can

OpenAI said the feature would enable wider access to ChatGPT. After all, calling a phone number is usually free and accessible for people who may not have unlimited data or who are not close to a Wi-Fi connection.

However, anyone who wants to call ChatGPT can only do so for 15 minutes a month.

This isn’t the first time a tech company has used calling or texting to expand its user base. In countries like the Philippines, Facebook offers a way for people to use SMS to post on social media platform. This has proven to be an advantage in Facebook’s expansion to the Philippines, where most people have a cellphone, although not necessarily a smartphone. Filipinos are now some of the largest social network users.

Not that ChatGPT will harm users. It is still one of the most used AI platforms out there, even with a lot of competition in the market. OpenAI says its enterprise offerings, ChatGPT Enterprise, Team and Edu only, logged more than 1 million users in September. A month earlier, ChatGPT itself reached 200 million users.

OpenAI offers ChatGPT for free, but it provides its more advanced models and other powerful features to subscribers at the Plus, Teams, Pro, Enterprise and Edu levels.

“This is an experimental way to communicate with ChatGPT, so availability and limitations may change,” the company said. “For a fuller experience with more tools, higher limits and more personalization, existing users should continue to use ChatGPT directly through their accounts.”

The disadvantages

Calling ChatGPT is like using OpenAI Voice and Advanced Voice Model. I called ChatGPT and asked for ideas on what to do on a layover in Tokyo. As expected, it gave me some suggestions.

The difference though, I didn’t get a reading of my ChatGPT conversation. If I use Advanced Voice Mode, whatever we’re talking about will be transferred to a written chat that I can watch again when I log into my account.

I also doubt that any developers will call up ChatGPT and ask it to code anything.

But the part is interesting and it works. Not bad for something the OpenAI developers did just a few weeks ago for a Hack Week.