ChatGPT Plugins: Enhancing Conversational AI Capabilities

Tanish Gupta
3 min readMar 25, 2023

--

Boosting ChatGPT’s capabilities through its plugins

Introduction

ChatGPT is an OpenAI conversational AI model that allows users to have natural language conversations with a machine. It is intended to handle a wide range of tasks, such as answering questions, making reservations, and even writing articles. But what if ChatGPT had more capabilities? What if it could retrieve real-time data or perform actions on the user’s behalf? This is where ChatGPT plugins come into play.

What are ChatGPT plugins?

ChatGPT plugins are third-party applications that connect ChatGPT to various APIs. They enable ChatGPT to perform a wide range of actions, from retrieving real-time information like sports scores and stock prices to retrieving knowledge-based information like company documents and personal notes. They can also perform actions on behalf of the user, such as booking a flight or ordering food. These plugins extend ChatGPT’s capabilities and enable it to perform more complex tasks.

Why are ChatGPT plugins useful?

ChatGPT plugins are useful because they extend ChatGPT’s capabilities and enable it to perform more complex tasks. They also save users time and effort by performing actions such as booking a flight or ordering food on their behalf. Furthermore, plugins can retrieve real-time data, making ChatGPT more useful in situations where up-to-date data is critical. A stock trading plugin, for example, could allow users to get real-time stock prices and trade directly from the ChatGPT interface.

How can I use ChatGPT plugins?

ChatGPT plugins are in limited alpha and may not be available to you at this time. You can, however, join the waitlist to gain access. Developers of plugins disclose one or more API endpoints, which are backed by a standardised manifest file and an OpenAPI specification. These describe the functionality of the plugin, allowing ChatGPT to consume files and make calls to developer-defined APIs.

To utilise a ChatGPT plugin, you must first register it in the ChatGPT UI. You can then manually enable the plugin in the ChatGPT UI. Plugin creators will be able to share their plugin with 15 additional users during the alpha period. (only other developers can install unverified plugins currently). Over time, OpenAI will make it possible to submit your plugin for review and have it accessible to the entire ChatGPT user base. If authentication is necessary, users will be sent to your plugin through OAuth, you can also optionally create new accounts here.

Models Supported as of now by the ChatGPT Plugins are for

  1. Browsing
  2. Code Interpreter
  3. Retrieval
  4. And a Few more 3rd Party Plugins

For more detailed info you can also refer to the official website of OpenAI where they have shared detailed info of the same.

Conclusion

ChatGPT plugins extend the ChatGPT AI model’s capabilities, allowing it to do more complicated tasks and retrieve real-time data. Developers of plugins disclose one or more API endpoints, which are backed by a standardised manifest file and an OpenAPI specification. These describe the functionality of the plugin, allowing ChatGPT to consume files and make calls to developer-defined APIs. While ChatGPT plugins are still in the early stages, they show significant promise for the future of conversational AI.

If you found this article informative and helpful, please consider giving it a clap and sharing it with others who may be interested and follow for more content like this. Thanks.

--

--