GIFs Arrive in ChatGPT, Bringing Prompts & Photos to Life
OpenAI is rolling out animated GIF creation inside the chatbot, letting users turn a text prompt or an uploaded photo into a looping animation in one step.
The feature arrives with Images 2.6, OpenAI's newest image generation model, which the company announced on November 4. Until now, ChatGPT had no built-in way to create a GIF, so anyone who wanted motion had to take a still image into a separate tool.
OpenAI showed off the feature with a simple request for a GIF of a dancing cat. Once ChatGPT creates the animation, users can speed it up or slow it down, step through it frame by frame, edit individual frames and share the finished loop. By default, a GIF is a short sequence of nine pictures, each shown for a fifth of a second. Besides prompts and photos, a rough sketch can also serve as the starting point. OpenAI has also pitched holiday use cases, like animated Diwali greetings and cartoon-style portraits.
The update isn't only about GIFs. OpenAI says Images 2.6 generates images 50% faster than the previous version, and it adds saved reference images to help keep characters and subjects consistent across edits. Developers get two new API models: Flare, which OpenAI says can produce an image in as little as six seconds, and Sunburst, which focuses on higher quality and consistency. The release also brings image markup to the API, so developers can point to the exact spots they want changed, along with SVG export for websites, apps and print.
Images 2.6 is rolling out to ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work and Codex users on web, desktop and mobile across all plans. The rollout appears to be gradual, though. When Decrypt tried the GIF tool, it wasn't available on their accounts yet, and OpenAI hasn't said exactly when every user will get it.
If the GIF option hasn't shown up for you yet, it should arrive soon. Once it does, trying it is as easy as asking ChatGPT to make a GIF of anything you can describe, or uploading a photo and asking it to bring the image to life.
Just make sure you're using the real thing. Scammers have recently sent fake ChatGPT billing notices aimed at stealing credit card numbers and one-time passcodes. Stick to the official ChatGPT app or website, and keep antivirus software running on your devices.
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