OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT widget for Android smartphones; Now get quicker access from the home screen

With the ChatGPT home screen widget for Android smartphones, OpenAI aims to make its AI chatbot more easily accessible to users.

The ChatGPT home screen widget has been rolled out for Android smartphones. (Pexels)

ChatGPT, the popular artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot from OpenAI, has introduced a widget for Android smartphones, allowing quicker access from the home screen. This is the latest in a line of new features that OpenAI is currently testing as it faces cutthroat competition from the likes of Google Gemini which was recently introduced as an assistant for smartphones. The upgrades include memory with ChatGPT which allows the AI chatbot to remember your last conversation, dismissing the requirement for repeated prompts. Now with the home screen widget, the company aims to make the AI chatbot more easily accessible to users.

ChatGPT gets a widget

The home screen widget feature was revealed by Android Central contributor Mishaal Rahman. In an X post. Rahman posted, “ChatGPT for Android now has a home screen widget.” The ChatGPT widget includes multiple options, such as shortcuts for text, voice and video queries.

Moreover, it allows users to start a conversation mode, allowing users to interact with the AI chatbot straight from the home screen of their smartphones. The ChatGPT widget was seen in the app version 1.2024.052.

It is important to note that we attempted to try this feature but it isn't available on the ChatGPT version 1.2024.045 which is currently on the Google Play Store. Therefore, it is possible that it is still in the beta phase and a public rollout hasn't happened yet.

ChatGPT issues

The introduction of this feature comes just days after ChatGPT encountered problems. On February 20, several users reported running into issues on ChatGPT. The AI chatbot reportedly switched languages on its own, got stuck in loops, corrected itself on occasions and even spewed nonsensical replies.

Shortly after, OpenAI acknowledged the problems. The issue was soon identified and OpenAI applied the fixes, following which it continued to monitor the situation.

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