OpenAI indicated Wednesday that it plans to monetize ChatGPT, its AI-powered chatbot that is fast-winning the internet industry due to its ability to do things such as writing essays, emails, poems and codes.
The company’s cofounder and CEO Greg Brockman tweeted that [they’re] “working on a professional version of ChatGPT”, which will “offer higher limits & faster performance.”
Working on a professional version of ChatGPT; will offer higher limits & faster performance. If interested, please join our waitlist here: https://t.co/Eh87OViRie
— Greg Brockman (@gdb) January 11, 2023
This signals OpenAI’s intent to start charging for professional use of ChatGPT as the company seeks revenue to compensate for the billions of dollars it has so far received in investment. ChatGPT racked up over one million users in the first week of its operation, making it one of the fastest growing startups of its time.
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The waiting list shared by Brockman indicated that the monetized version of the AI tool will be called ChatGPT professional. OpenAI said the plan is a way to “ensure [the tool’s] long-term viability.”
The waiting list also asked responders about pricing. OpenAI wants to know how much users would prefer to pay for ChatGPT services. One of the questions it posed was: “At what price (per month) would you consider ChatGPT to be so expensive that you would not consider buying it?”
More professionals have continued to testify about the usefulness of ChatPGT, indicating that the startup would have a large customer-base subscribed to the professional version.
But the ChatPGT has experienced outages that have cast doubt on the machine’s ability to deliver uninterrupted professional services. About that, OpenAI said ChatPGT Professional will have benefits such as no “blackout”, which occurs when the AI services become abruptly limited or unavailable. OpenAI says services offered under ChatGPT Professional will be double the regular daily limit and the benefits will include no unavailability window, no throttling and an unlimited number of messages with the chatbot.
OpenAI says the ChatGPT Professional is still in experimental stage and not yet available for general use. The company added that those who fill out the waitlist form may be selected to pilot the programme.
ChatGPT has recorded ground-breaking success in a short time, delivering human context to queries. Earlier this week, a user asked the chatbot to write an article on the reported Microsoft’s $10 billion investment in OpenAI, and ChatGPT penned an interesting piece about the deal.
Microsoft had in 2019, invested $1 billion in OpenAI, which gives it an exclusive license to use its text generator AI GPT-3.
OpenAI is reportedly raising funds that will put its valuation at $29 billion. Under the funding, Microsoft will have a 49% stake, while other investors will take another 49% and OpenAI’s nonprofit parent will get 2%. But Microsoft will reportedly get a 75% share of OpenAI’s profits until it has recouped all the money on its investment, after which the company would revert to its original 49% stake in OpenAI.
The investment comes days after Microsoft reportedly announced plan to incorporate ChatPGT into its Bing search engine service in a bid to challenge Google’s domination of the web search industry.
However, while there is increasing investment interest in the AI-powered chatbot, it is yet to start bringing in much needed revenue from its operation. OpenAI is expected to generate income from products like ChatGPT before the $10 billion investment from Microsoft. The company is expected to make $200 million in 2023, meager revenue compared to the billions of dollars currently being invested in the startup.