OpenAI has announced ChatGPT Plus, a $20 monthly plan that grants you priority access to the AI chatbot, even during peak hours, when free users must wait.
According to the corporation, the plan would also provide you with “better response times” and “priority access to new features and upgrades.”
OpenAI says it will send invitations to anyone on its waitlist in the United States “in the coming weeks” and that it will expand the rollout to additional countries and areas in the future.
“We launched ChatGPT as a research preview so we could learn more about the system’s strengths and weaknesses and gather user feedback to help us improve upon its limitations. Since then, millions of people have given us feedback, we’ve made several important updates, and we’ve seen users find value across a range of professional use-cases, including drafting & editing content, brainstorming ideas, programming help, and learning new topics,” OpenAI explained.
Read also: Microsoft is adding OpenAI writing technology to Office
ChatGPT Premium plan
Less than a week ago, Techpression reported that OpenAI was planning to launch a plus or pro version of the service for $42 a month, a significantly higher fee that would be difficult to justify for people who were not making money with the service.
However, for $20 per month, it may be more affordable to a wider range of people, including schools and enterprises that require consistent access to AI-generated text.
It might also serve as a model for prospective paid AI chatbots, which are almost likely on the way. Given that OpenAI is a trailblazer in the area, anyone attempting to develop a bot that costs more than $20 per month will have to make a strong case for why their bot is superior to ChatGPT Plus.
The employment of AI to compose things like articles or essays assigned as homework might be contentious. OpenAI appears to recognize this since it provided a free tool to detect created text earlier this week, though it’s unclear how effective it will be at this stage.
ChatGPT will not become a paid-only application. According to OpenAI, it will continue to be available for free, and paid users will “help support free access available to as many people as possible.”
In addition, there will soon be a waiting list for the ChatGPT API, and OpenAI is actively considering options for less expensive plans, business plans, and data packs to make its services more accessible.
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How Tech Giants Are Reacting To ChatGPT
Meanwhile, rival tech giant Google is testing a chatbot competitor called “Apprentice Bard” based on Google’s LaMDA conversational engine to enable question-and-answer search, CNBC reports indicate.
Also, recall that the business has been operating under “Code Red” since December, with CEO Sundar Pichai engaging founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to help on getting AI-powered search products to market. To fit with its new aims, the firm initiated a restructure with huge layoffs in January.
This comes after Microsoft announced its third round of investment in ChatGPT maker OpenAI on January 23 on its official website.
According to Microsoft, “we are announcing the third phase of our long-term partnership with OpenAI through a multiyear, multibillion dollar investment to accelerate AI breakthroughs to ensure these benefits are broadly shared with the world.”
The tech giant went on to explain how long Microsoft has been working with OpenAI in its endeavour to expand its frontiers in Artificial Intelligence.
“This agreement follows our previous investments in 2019 and 2021. It extends our ongoing collaboration across AI supercomputing and research and enables each of us to independently commercialize the resulting advanced AI technologies,” Microsoft said.