The company that created the popular AI chatbot, OpenAI, has started a waitlist for ChatGPT Professional, an “experimental” paid version.
OpenAI has gained positive press thanks to ChatGPT, which has generated a ton of social media memes and garnered significant media coverage. A few investors have included ChatGPT in their work processes. For an advertisement for Mint Mobile, the mobile provider he co-owns, Ryan Reynolds used ChatGPT. Additionally, according to reports, Microsoft would integrate ChatGPT’s AI into its Office programs and Bing.
As of the beginning of December, ChatGPT had over a million users, an impressive user base by any standard. But maintaining the service is expensive. Sam Altman, co-founder, and CEO of OpenAI described ChatGPT’s operational costs as “eye-watering,” with a total compute cost of a few cents for each chat.
What is ChatGPT Professional?
The bot, which received the most acclaim and criticism in 2022, needs some financial support as Microsoft wants to invest in OpenAI.
OpenAI has announced on its Discord server that it may soon introduce a paid pro version of its popular AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT. According to the announcement, the pro version of ChatGPT will be faster and more reliable. ChatGPT Professional is planned to fix many problems which are most criticized around social media like getting stuck, limited commands can be entered, and the bot sometimes working for more than 1 hour to answer questions.
OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman has previously mentioned that they are considering making ChatGPT Professional, noting rising CPU prices.
ChatGPT Professional features
According to claims, ChatGPT Professional has the following advantages:
- Zero blackouts
- Quicker answers to commands
- At least two times the daily message cap will be given to users of ChatGPT Professional
OpenAI can generate income to pay for ChatGPT’s upkeep and its development by charging for a pro version. The announcement on ChatGPT Professional from OpenAI reads:
“We’re starting to think about how to monetize ChatGPT (early thinking, nothing official to share yet). Our goal is to continue improving and maintaining the service, and monetization is one way we’re considering to ensure its long-term viability. We’re interested in chatting with some folks for ~15 min to get some early feedback. If you’re interested in chatting, please fill out this form (takes ~10 min to fill out).”
-OpenAI team
How to join the ChatGPT Professional waitlist?
In a Discord post, the company said that starting to look into ChatGPT’s monetization options is “one possibility we’re contemplating to assure its long-term existence.” According to OpenAI, there is “nothing official to share yet,” and monetization conversations are “early.”
You may sign up for the waitlist for ChatGPT Professional, which is “always accessible,” responds more rapidly, and does at least twice as many searches per day as the free version, by clicking the link in the post that leads to a Google Form.
If you’re interested, you must complete a questionnaire that asks questions about your usage of ChatGPT and your price range.
The application states that those chosen for the pilot program will get personalized notifications:
“If you are selected, we’ll reach out to you to set up a payment process and a pilot. Please keep in mind that this is an early experimental program that is subject to change, and we are not making paid pro access generally available at this time.”
-OpenAI team
Will ChatGPT remain free after the release of ChatGPT Professional?
Whether or when OpenAI pursues ChatGPT Professional, the business makes no guarantees that a free version will always be available. The ChatGPT version that is currently accessible is a free research preview. In other words, we’re all beta testers for a product that will eventually be sold for money.
Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, claims that rising CPU costs force him to monetize ChatGPT in a reply to a tweet from his Twitter account:
we will have to monetize it somehow at some point; the compute costs are eye-watering
— Sam Altman (@sama) December 5, 2022
OpenAI is able to run ChatGPT because of investor funding, but the investors want a return. With Microsoft and other strong corporations as investors, OpenAI is under a lot of pressure to be profitable.
The discussion over monetizing ChatGPT may likely get more steam given Microsoft’s plans to invest an extra $10 billion. We’ll keep an eye on the ChatGPT Professional topic on Discord and update you as more information becomes available.
