OpenAI began a 12-day marathon of new products with the announcement of ChatGPT Pro. This is a new paid subscription tier costing $200 per month that gives users unlimited access to all OpenAI models, including the powerful o1 pro, an improved version of the o1 model that excels at reasoning and problem-solving skills.
Image source: Growtika/Unsplash.com
This is the company’s most expensive plan, ten times the cost of the basic ChatGPT Plus plan. Given that many users already consider the ChatGPT Plus plan to be too expensive, the question arises who OpenAI is targeting with the ChatGPT Pro subscription.
«We believe the audience for ChatGPT Pro will be experienced ChatGPT users—those who are already pushing models to their limits in tasks like math, programming and writing,” said Jason Wei, a spokesman for ChatGPT Pro, at a press conference on Thursday. OpenAI technical staff.
To entice users to upgrade to ChatGPT Pro, the company has added unlimited access to GPT-4o and Advanced Voice Mode, a feature that allows you to conduct a conversation as close to human as possible. ChatGPT Plus users have a daily time limit to use these features, while free users are limited to previews only.
OpenAI also plans to give away some subscriptions for free. For example, on Thursday the company announced a program to award 10 ChatGPT Pro grants to medical researchers at “leading institutions,” as well as plans to provide additional grants in the future across “various disciplines.”
According to The New York Times, OpenAI plans to charge $44 per month for a ChatGPT Plus subscription by 2029. The rise in subscription costs is due to pressure on OpenAI from investors wanting to cut losses. Although the company’s revenue reached $300 million in August, its losses for the year could amount to about $5 billion, according to the New York Times. Costs for staff salaries, office rent and AI training infrastructure are to blame for this. It is reported that the company spent up to $700 thousand per day on ChatGPT alone.