On Thursday during a live-streamed session, Sam Altman-led OpenAI introduced a new subscription tier for its ChatGPT platform, priced at $200 per month.
What Happened: This new plan, called ChatGPT Pro, offers unlimited access to all of OpenAI’s models, including the advanced "o1" reasoning model.
ChatGPT Pro subscribers will also have access to an improved version of the o1 model, known as o1 pro mode.
The "o1" model has been improved since its preview release in September. It now offers faster and more accurate performance, especially in coding and math tasks.
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Internal testing showed a 34% reduction in major errors on difficult questions compared to the preview version. However, the full "o1" model still underperforms on some benchmarks like MLE-Bench.
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Why It Matters: Following the announcement, Pierre Ferragu, an analyst at New Street Research and Grok investor, took to X, formerly Twitter, and shared his bullish outlook on AI infrastructure, noting the cost of running advanced AI models.
Addressing the concerns surrounding the $200 price tag, he said that running GPT-4 is 30 times more expensive than what users pay for ChatGPT Pro at $200/month.
However, strong adoption could drive both user growth and higher average revenue per user, fueling the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure, he said. “Most important task for investors in the next few months = monitor adoption.”
The launch of ChatGPT Pro is part of the “12 Days of OpenAI” event, per Altman includes a series of new features and models. This event is also expected to include the launch of AI video generator Sora.
Earlier this week, during an interview, Altman also acknowledged a competitive race with Elon Musk’s xAI. However, he rejected rumors about Musk using his close ties with President-elect Donald Trump against rivals like OpenAI.
Previously, OpenAI executives also revealed the company's strategic goals including reaching 1 billion users by 2025, supported by partnerships with companies like Apple Inc..
In October, OpenAI had secured over $6 billion in funding at a valuation of $157 billion.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
