OpenAI is giving chatbot ChatGPT the ability to process and speak to users about what it observes in video feeds in real time, seven months after it first teased the feature.

With the new option, unveiled in a livestreamed event on Thursday, ChatGPT can recognize objects via a smartphone's camera and react to what's on screen by talking. For example, a user might ask for help in responding to a message in an opened app or get real-time instructions for making coffee.

The video option will begin rolling out for paid ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers. OpenAI's enterprise and educational customers will get the feature in January, the company said.

OpenAI kicked off a wave of investment in text-based chatbots with the launch of ChatGPT two years ago. Since then, OpenAI and its rivals have pushed into so-called multimodal features that respond to audio, images and video. In the process, these services are able to provide a more dynamic and engaging digital assistant.

"The announcement came during what OpenAI has said will be 12 days of livestreamed product events," reported Bloomberg News about the development. "OpenAI has used the launch series to introduce a more expensive new ChatGPT Pro subscription option and begin rolling out an AI video generation tool called Sora."