Since it first launched in late 2022 to the public, OpenAI has required that people who want to access the chatbot to sign up for an OpenAI account. Today, the company revealed it will be making access to ChatGPT free for everyone, with no need to create an account.
In a blog post today, OpenAI stated it is rolling out this new access "gradually" so depending on where you live you may still need to get an account before this improvement is available for everyone. So why make ChatGPT available completely for free now? OpenAI says its main goal is to let anyone who is curious about AI to gain access to it.
OpenAI does say that this new freedom to access ChatGPT does come with a few caveats. There will be more guardrails for the "free" version, and that means text prompts may be blocked from being used.
You can still sign up for an account to use ChatGPT and it will have features that the "free" version doesn't have. OpenAI says:
There are many benefits to creating an account including the ability to save and review your chat history, share chats, and unlock additional features like voice conversations and custom instructions.
OpenAI also says users of the free ChatGPT edition could also access any content you might type into the chatbot to train it for future LLM models in the future. However, people with or without an account can simply go into the Settings menu, and then click off the toggle that says "Improve the model for everyone."
OpenAI also mentioned in today's blog post that ChatGPT currently has 100 million people accessing it weekly from 185 countries.
Last week, a new but unconfirmed report claims OpenAI and its biggest financial partner Microsoft are working on a new AI supercomputer for up to $100 billion that is being developed under the code name "Stargate". It's not expected to be completed until 2028.
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