There is only one Google Search. Yes, there is no subscription-based Google Search. ChatGPT has a new idea – charge $20/month for its elevated solution: “Dubbed ChatGPT Plus, OpenAI said the cost starts from $20 per month, but with enormous benefits that include general access to ChatGPT even during peak times, faster response times and priority access to new features and improvements – all better than the base-level ChatGPT.”

I will not subscribe to this service as the playbook makes no sense unless it is work or project related. But just checking things up on the web, at a personal level, should not take me backwards that much. Yet, if they can work with Microsoft and bundle it with Microsoft 365 so that I can pay for it along with Excel, Word, etc licenses, that will work. But going solo for ChatGPT+ for personal use, no way!

Of course, bills have to be paid and this experimentation is good. “ChatGPT: is a subscription business model a good business strategy?” Would be good to know how it answers.

ChatGPT: OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Plus, Starting at $20 Per Month

OpenAI has launched the monetized version of ChatGPT, its phenomenal chatbot disrupting the web search industry with unique text-generating ability.

The company announced the plan to launch a professional version last month, in aim to create more efficient alternative for professionals who’d be counting on it to speed up their work.

Dubbed ChatGPT Plus, OpenAI said the cost starts from $20 per month, but with enormous benefits that include general access to ChatGPT even during peak times, faster response times and priority access to new features and improvements – all better than the base-level ChatGPT.

We're piloting ChatGPT Plus, a $20/mo subscription for faster response times and reliability during peak hours: https://t.co/ZDK37w9MIs

— Greg Brockman (@gdb) February 1, 2023

However, the company said the free version of the ChatGPT stays, adding that the ChatGPT Plus is only available to US customers for now.

OpenAI’s cofounder Greg Brockman tweeted the plan last month, inviting people to join the waitlist as they aim to create the version which will “offer higher limits & faster performance.” The company said Wednesday it’ll begin the process of inviting people from its waitlist in the coming months and look to expand ChatGPTPlus to additional countries and regions soon.

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

“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,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post. “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 and editing content, brainstorming ideas, programming help and learning new topics.”

OpenAI indicated that other plans are on the way, according to its blog post. The company said that it’s “actively exploring” options for lower-cost plans, business plans and data packs in addition to an API.

“We love our free users and will continue to offer free access to ChatGPT. By offering this subscription pricing, we will be able to help support free access availability to as many people as possible,” it said. “We plan to refine and expand this offering based on your feedback and needs.”

ChatGPT has seen unprecedented growth since it was launched late last year, recording more than a million users in its first month. Its sweeping adoption is being fueled by its AI-powered ability to generate answers and authentic-looking responses to queries about all topics. ChatGPT uses the GPT-3.5, a language model released last year, to accomplish tasks such as creating poems, composing college essays and writing code.

Last month, the AI-powered chatbot passed an MBA exam set by a Wharton professor, scoring strong B. It has also passed law and US medical licensing exams, adding to several other brilliant ways it has wowed users.

ChatGPT’s brilliance has stoked investment interest in OpenAI, with Microsoft, which had invested $1 billion in the company in 2019, leading the pack. Last month, Microsoft increased its investment in OpenAI with reported $10 billion as the company pushes for $29 billion valuation.

This is despite the shortfalls that have cast doubt on ChatGPT’s reliability. OpenAI’s cofounder and CEO Sam Altman has warned that the chatbot cannot be trusted at the moment because it is still prone to misinformation and biases. As educators worry about ChatGPT’s impact on critical thinking, some schools have made decisions to ban it.

But OpenAI has come under pressure to turn a profit on products like ChatGPT following Microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar investment that includes move to incorporate the chatbot into Microsoft’s search engine Bing.

The company expects to make $200 million in 2023, which amounts to nothing compared to how much Microsoft has betted on it. Altman said ChatGPT’s operating expenses are “eye-watering,” amounting to a few cents per chat in total compute costs.

To win in markets, you need to have a great product-market fit. It is a spot where the frictions in markets and the “forces” (the products and services) you are creating to overcome them attain equilibrium.

So, when Peloton, an experience-exercise company, which helped people do exercise at home, was raking it at the peak of the pandemic, I wrote: “before you invest, think beyond Covid-fit to market-fit”. In other words, that product must not just do well during Covid pandemic, but also when normalcy returns.

Normalcy returned and Peloton stock crashed before something amazing began to happen: Peloton went to the strategy lab and invented a new business model – and with that model, there seems to be a ray of hope: “but the fitness company’s stock rose nearly 20% Wednesday as revenue exceeded projections and subscriptions outpaced hardware sales. Sales for Peloton’s connected equipment fell drastically (52% year over year), yet revenue for subscriptions rose markedly (22%)”.

There is power in the subscription business model: investors love it. If Peloton moves into that playbook, even a revenue fall on hardware will not affect its mission. Of course, when the sale of the iPhone was not moving in the way Apple wanted, the company stopped reporting iPhone numbers. Simply, Apple emerged from a “hardware” company to a service company with App Store, subscription, etc powering that future. Markets have rewarded Apple for that. Peloton has a date with alpha if it executes well.

Peloton may have reported a loss for the eighth consecutive quarter, but the fitness company’s stock rose nearly 20% Wednesday as revenue exceeded projections and subscriptions outpaced hardware sales. Sales for Peloton’s connected equipment fell drastically (52% year over year), yet revenue for subscriptions rose markedly (22%), prompting CEO Barry McCarthy to suggest that it might be a “turning point.” Peloton boomed at the start of the pandemic, but took a substantial hit as the world opened back up, with the home gym equipment maker conducting its fourth round of layoffs this past fall.

Good People, the most important thing in business is the business model. Most times, markets are not the problem. The challenge is coming up with the right business model to unlock the latent opportunities. Companies pay CEOs to come up with the right business model.

It is a hopeless journey to think selling exercise equipment will make you rich in the age of China (anyone can clone and order a similar equipment). But delivering exercise-anchored lessons on proprietary hardware has a chance. Yes, nothing says it cannot open its platform for others to create services in the ecosystem.

It is a great business model: head you win, tail you win. Yes, ChatGPT will sell you a product which will help you to write nice essays with the help of AI. And will also sell another product to another company to help detect that you used AI to write that essay! But if you dig deeper, that playbook is right on the money. Indeed, ChatGPT wants you to begin the discovery from it but do not copy it verbatim for any purpose.

It is like a smart Wikipedia which no one copies Wikipedia verbatim for an assignment. You review Wikipedia and then come up in your own words whatever you have learnt. ChatGPT wants you to follow the same trajectory when dealing with it.

When you are a creator and also a detector, you can protect your castle because the moat will be solid. This company is closing the flanks and when you go into a business warfare and do that very well, according to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, victory will be near certain. OpenAI, which owns ChatGPT, is a category-king company. It is already closing the flanks at scale, making it possible for a complementary product to emerge: buy the creator suite – and the detector suite. What a company!

The maker of ChatGPT is trying to curb its reputation as a freewheeling cheating machine with a new tool that can help teachers detect if a student or artificial intelligence wrote that homework.

The new AI Text Classifier launched Tuesday by OpenAI follows a weeks-long discussion at schools and colleges over fears that ChatGPT’s ability to write just about anything on command could fuel academic dishonesty and hinder learning.

OpenAI cautions that its new tool – like others already available – is not foolproof. The method for detecting AI-written text “is imperfect and it will be wrong sometimes,” said Jan Leike, head of OpenAI’s alignment team tasked to make its systems safer.

“Because of that, it shouldn’t be solely relied upon when making decisions,” Leike said.

Teenagers and college students were among the millions of people who began experimenting with ChatGPT after it launched Nov. 30 as a free application on OpenAI’s website. And while many found ways to use it creatively and harmlessly, the ease with which it could answer take-home test questions and assist with other assignments sparked a panic among some educators.