By Roman Aglaganov
For most of its life, ChatGPT has answered in text: paragraphs, bullet points, the occasional table. On 7 October, OpenAI started rolling out a new GPT-6 model in ChatGPT together with a feature it calls Intelligent UI, which builds visual and often interactive answers on the fly.
What changes
Ask how something works and the answer can now include diagrams, interactive charts, editable graphs, tappable buttons or a small custom calculator made for your question. In a demo for journalists, reported by TechCrunch, a product manager asked ChatGPT to explore how an aeroplane wing generates lift, and it produced a set of diagrams on the spot. Other examples included recipe visuals, a diagram of how a bicycle works, a map for a multi-day hike and a personal savings calculator.
OpenAI says the goal is to make complex topics easier to learn. If you prefer plain answers, you can dial the visuals back, much like the other personality settings.
Who gets it
Intelligent UI rolled out globally with GPT-6 on 7 October for Pro, Plus, Business and Enterprise subscribers, and arrived the next day for the free and lower-cost Go tiers.
Why it matters
Chatbots have been getting smarter faster than they have been getting easier to use. A slider you can drag teaches compound interest better than three paragraphs about it, and an answer that looks like an app may bring in people who never liked typing to a chatbot.
One caution: a polished calculator looks authoritative. It is still generated by a model, so check the numbers that matter, just as you would check a confident paragraph.
