OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research company, has updated its Assistants API with a faster, more accurate file search tool, vector stores, and a tool choice parameter.

OpenAI announced the Assistants API update on April 17. The new file_search tool can retrieve as many as 10,000 files per assistant. It connects models with developers' data to assist in building applications relevant to an organization or use case. The tool works with the new vector store objects for automated file parsing, chunking, and embedding. New token controls, tool-choice capabilities, and added support for model configuration parameters offer greater flexibility to individual use cases.

Developers can fine-tune models in the Assistants API, which also now supports streaming. Several streaming and polling helpers have been added to the Node and Python SDKs.

The Assistants API beta, which launched in November 2023, has been moved to a new version with this update: OpenAI-Beta: assistants=v2.

The Assistants API is designed to help developers build assistants for a variety of software tasks. Assistants can call OpenAI models with specific instructions, access multiple tools in parallel, access persistent threads, and access files in several formats. A migration guide is available to migrate tool usage to the latest version of the Assistants API.