📱 ChatGPT on WhatsApp gets Voice and Image

Also: AI spending surges as DeepSeek heats up competition

Author

Evolving AI
February 05, 2025

In partnership with

Welcome, AI enthusiasts

ChatGPT on WhatsApp just got a major upgrade. You can now send images, voice messages and link your account for a smoother experience. Meanwhile, tech giants are doubling down on AI, believing that cheaper AI will drive demand, not cut profits. And a new AI system from ByteDance, OmniHuman-1, generates shockingly convincing deepfake videos. Let’s dive in!

In today’s insights:

  • WhatsApp ChatGPT gets Voice and Image features

  • AI spending surges as DeepSeek heats up competition

  • ByteDance's AI can animate both real people and cartoon characters from a single image

Read time: 4 minutes

🗞️ LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

Evolving AI: ChatGPT on WhatsApp now supports image inputs, voice messages, and account linking.

Key Points:

  • Users can now send photos and voice messages to ChatGPT on WhatsApp for text-based responses.

  • Account linking allows ChatGPT Plus, Free, and Pro users to access subscription features within WhatsApp.

  • OpenAI expands availability, making these updates accessible globally, including in India.

Details:

ChatGPT on WhatsApp has received a major update, bringing it closer to its web and app versions. Users can now send images for analysis, and the AI will respond with text-based insights. Voice message support has been introduced, making it easier for users to interact without typing. Account linking ensures that subscription features carry over, meaning Plus and Pro users get higher usage limits and potentially more advanced models. These updates are available worldwide, reinforcing OpenAI’s push for wider accessibility as competition in AI assistants grows.

Why It Matters:

These features make ChatGPT on WhatsApp more practical for everyday use. Image recognition can assist with tasks like troubleshooting, translation, and content creation, while voice messaging offers hands-free convenience. With AI assistants becoming more integrated into messaging apps, how users interact with AI is evolving — effortless, multimodal, and embedded in daily communication.

10x Your Outbound With Our AI BDR

Imagine your calendar filling with qualified sales meetings, on autopilot. That's Ava's job. She's an AI BDR who automates your entire outbound demand generation.

Ava operates within the Artisan platform, which consolidates every tool you need for outbound:

  • 300M+ High-Quality B2B Prospects

  • Automated Lead Enrichment With 10+ Data Sources Included

  • Full Email Deliverability Management

  • Personalization Waterfall using LinkedIn, Twitter, Web Scraping & More

Source: Jeenah Moon / Bloomberg / Getty Images

Evolving AI: Tech giants are ramping up AI investments, betting that cheaper AI will fuel demand instead of reducing profits.

Key Points:

  • Alphabet is increasing capital expenditures to $75 billion in 2024, a 42% jump, as it pushes AI forward.

  • CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged DeepSeek's advancements but reaffirmed Alphabet's AI ambitions.

  • Meta is also committed to AI, with Mark Zuckerberg promising "hundreds of billions" in future spending.

Details:

Alphabet (Google) is doubling down on AI, significantly increasing its investment in infrastructure and research. Pichai praised DeepSeek's progress but emphasized that Alphabet’s own Gemini models are competitive. The company expects lower AI costs to drive massive usage, benefiting its ecosystem of billions of users. Meta shares a similar outlook, vowing continued investment in AI despite speculation about whether cheaper models could disrupt demand for AI chips and data centers.

Why It Matters:

Big Tech isn't backing down. While AI models are becoming cheaper and more efficient, Alphabet and Meta believe this will increase demand rather than hurt their business. This could lead to better and even cheaper AI tools for users. Safe to say we owe DeepSeek a little ‘thank you’ for keeping everyone on their toes.

Evolving AI: The EU has released guidance to help AI developers comply with its new regulatory framework.

Key Points:

  • OmniHuman-1 adds motion and speech to still images.

  • It learns from text, audio, images, and body poses using 19K hours of video.

  • The tool works with real faces and cartoons and may reach TikTok and CapCut users.

Details:

ByteDance has introduced OmniHuman-1, an AI framework capable of generating lifelike videos from still images and audio. Unlike previous models, it processes multiple types of input — text, images, audio, and body poses — to improve motion accuracy. This method allows it to retain more relevant details from training data while avoiding unnecessary noise. The system was trained on about 19,000 hours of video, allowing it to create smoother animations and more natural lip-syncing. It can animate both real people and cartoon characters. The model can generate videos of varying lengths, limited only by available memory.

Why It Matters:

Deepfakes are getting shockingly good. OmniHuman-1 is easily heads and shoulders above previous deepfake techniques, and it may well be a sign of things to come. While ByteDance hasn’t released the system, the AI community tends not to take long to reverse-engineer models like these.

👀 Click on the image you think is real

🚀 OpenAI and the CSU system bring AI to 500,000 students.

🤖 Google Deepmind's new AI safety guidelines aim to stop systems from outsmarting humans.

😧 Google removes pledge to not use AI for weapons from website

✈️ USA’s Vice President J.D. Vance to attend global AI summit in Paris.

📈 Trending AI Tools

  • 📝 TrollyAI - Create Professional SEO articles 2x faster (link)

  • 🕸️ WebscrapeAI - Scrape any website without code using AI (link)

  • 🌐 Webwave - Generate your website in just 3 minutes (link)

  • 🎙️ LaunchPod - A tool for audio content creation with AI voices (link)

  • 📖 NovelCrafter - A tool to write, plan, draft, and organize novels (link)

Reply

or to participate.