Microsoft's OpenAI begins offering ChatGPT, a paid AI chatbot for $20 per month, with the launch of ChatGPT Plus.
Although people will still be able to use the chatbot for free, there are some perks that come with the ChatGPT Plus plan.
OpenAI said subscribers will have general access to the chatbot, even at peak times. They'll also get faster response times than ChatGPT, along with priority access to upgrades and new features, Engadget reported.
The paid service is only available in the United States at the moment.
OpenAI plans to gradually invite people from the ChatGPT Plus queue to sign up for the service over the coming months.
The company is also looking forward to opening the plan to people in other countries and regions in the near future.
OpenAI said the premium plan will help keep ChatGPT free for anyone to use.
In addition, it is exploring cheaper subscriptions, as well as business plans and data packages to increase availability.
“We launched ChatGPT as a research preview so we could learn more about the strengths and weaknesses of the system and collect user feedback to help us improve its limits,” OpenAI said in a blog post. “Since then millions of people have given us feedback, we've made many important updates and we've seen Users find value across a range of professional use cases, including crafting and editing content, brainstorming, helping with programming and learning new topics."
OpenAI has found some other ways to bring in funding.
Last month, Microsoft announced that it was making a multi-billion dollar investment in the company and plans to use OpenAI technology more widely across its products.
Meanwhile, Google has reportedly placed a heavy emphasis on its AI work after the advent of ChatGPT.
He is said to be preparing his chatbot and at least 20 other AI products to show off this year.