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OpenAI appears to be adopting a more generous approach, making many features previously exclusive to paying users accessible to all users of ChatGPT at no cost, a change announced during its Spring Update. This update also introduced GPT-4o and promising voice-to-voice functionality for ChatGPT, although the latter has not yet been rolled out. As for GPT-4o, it is now available to both free and paid accounts.
Under this new arrangement, free users can now enjoy access to numerous custom GPTs, totaling in the hundreds of thousands and created by various companies and individuals. Additionally, they gain access to tools for data and code analysis, the option to upload images for the chatbot to provide comments on, and, of course, the GPT-4o model itself.
However, there are limitations to this newfound generosity. With a free account, users are unable to create custom GPTs, utilize image generation with DALL-E, and are restricted to approximately 10 messages at a time with GPT-4o, after which it reverts back to GPT-3.5.
Why is OpenAI making features free?
OpenAI’s stated goal is to democratize access to advanced AI tools, which led to the decision to make GPT-4o and other tools free within ChatGPT.
While this goal is undoubtedly genuine, there are additional factors influencing this move, including heightened competition from other tech giants such as Microsoft with its GPT-4o-powered Copilot, Anthropic’s Claude 3, and Google.
Microsoft has provided GPTs, image generation, and data analysis in the free version of Copilot from the outset, distinguishing paid plans through rate limits. OpenAI is now adopting a similar strategy.
In addition to providing a broader audience with an improved understanding of AI capabilities, this decision is expected to increase subscription rates, given that the free plan only permits a restricted number of messages (probably around 10) utilizing GPT-4o and advanced tools per day.
In the free version of ChatGPT, users now have access to GPT-4o, OpenAI’s most advanced general-purpose AI model, as well as features like code and data analysis, image uploading, and GPTs.
However, there are limitations. Free users cannot create custom GPT chatbots, generate images using DALL-E, or access the ChatGPT desktop app for Mac, at least for the time being.
OpenAI has stated that paid accounts will receive priority access to new voice and vision capabilities, and it is anticipated that the next generation model will be exclusive to the paid plan upon its launch.
Additionally, the company has mentioned that paid users will receive five times more messages using GPT-4o per day compared to free users. In my testing, even with heavy usage, I have not encountered the message limit on the paid plan.