OpenAI is in advanced talks with former Apple designer Jony Ive and SoftBank's Masayoshi Son to build the "iPhone of artificial intelligence", fuelled by more than $1 billion in funding from the Japanese conglomerate, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

In a separate development, ChatGPT users will now be able to surf the web, the company said on Wednesday, expanding the data the viral chatbot can access beyond its earlier September 2021 cutoff.

The artificial intelligence startup said its latest browsing feature would allow websites to control how ChatGPT can interact with them.

"Browsing is available to Plus and Enterprise users today, and we'll expand to all users soon. To enable, choose Browse with Bing in the selector under GPT-4," OpenAI said in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

The startup also announced a major update earlier this week that would enable ChatGPT to have voice conversations with users and interact with them using images, moving it closer to popular AI assistants like Apple's Siri.

OpenAI had earlier tested a feature that allowed users to access the latest information through the Bing search engine within its premium ChatGPT Plus offering. But it later disabled it because of fears that it could allow users to bypass paywalls.

ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer application in history earlier this year, reaching 100 million monthly active users in January, before being supplanted by Meta's Threads app.

Its rise has driven up investor interest in OpenAI, with media including Reuters reporting on Tuesday that the startup is talking to shareholders about a possible sale of existing shares at a much higher valuation than a few months ago.

(Reporting by Samrhitha Arunasalam in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Pooja Desai)

(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)