OpenAI wants to trial ChatGPT Professional, a paid version of the viral AI

OpenAI has released a waitlist for a new version of its viral AI platform. Tentatively titled ChatGPT Professional, it will be a paid version of the tool that promises faster responses and consistent availability.

Launched back in November, ChatGPT soared in popularity overnight. This was largely thanks to social media, which demonstrated how the powerful AI chatbot could be harnessed for writing essays, speeches, songs and even code (including debugging). It surpassed over 1 million users in just five days and began experiencing server overload problems within a couple of weeks.

Blackout windows have now become common, as has speed throttling and a daily limit placed on responses. But all of that will disappear… if you’re willing to pay for it.

On Thursday morning Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI, announced that the company is piloting a professional version of ChatGPT and that interested users can apply for a waitlist.

“Working on a professional version of ChatGPT; will offer higher limits & faster performance. If interested, please join our waitlist here,” Brockman said on Twitter.

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

A similar announcement was made in OpenAI’s discord server.

“Hi @here! We’re starting to think about how to monetize ChatGPT (early thinking, nothing official to share yet). Our goal is to continue improving and maintaining the service, and monetization is one way we’re considering to ensure its long-term viability.”

Both posts link to a Google form that doesn’t just act like a waitlist but dabbles in a cheeky bit of market research. In addition to asking about what you use ChatGPT for, it also guages how much a user is willing to spend on a paid version and what price would be so low that one would question the quality.

Interestingly, it seems that OpenAI will also charge pilot users ahead of a public release.

“If you are selected, we’ll reach out to you to set up a payment process and a pilot,” the Google form reads.

“Please keep in mind that this is an early experimental program that is subject to change, and we are not making paid pro access generally available at this time.”

The ChatGPT Professional trial was announced right after the rumoured Microsoft investment

The timing on this is certainly interesting. Just this week it was reported that Microsoft is looking to invest US$10 billion ($14 billion) into OpenAI, giving it a 49% stake in the company which is currently being valued at $29 billion ($42 billion). According to Semafor, the deal includes a clause where Microsoft would pocket 75% of OpenAI’s profits until it recoups its investment.

That’s quite a bit of pressure and might explain the sudden rush towards monetising its viral product.

Still, ChatGPT has attracted its fair share of controversy since launching. Its immense popularity has been balanced with fears of it being used to replace jobs as well as helping students cheat on school and university assignments. And they’re questions worth asking. In our own experiment, we got ChatGPT to write about the ethics of the platform. And just this week it was revealed that technology publication CNET has been quietly using AI to write articles for months.