This week, OpenAI hinted that it might soon start monetizing ChatGPT, a popular chatbot making wave recently powered by AI that can create documents like essays, emails, poems, and even computer code.
OpenAI stated that one of the ways it is “beginning to think about how to commercialize ChatGPT” is to “guarantee [the tool’s] long-term sustainability” in a post on the company’s official Discord channel.
Evidently, ChatGPT Professional will be the name of the commercialized version of the software. In the Discord server, OpenAI provided a waitlist link that includes a list of inquiries about payment choices, including one that questions, “At what price (per month) would you regard ChatGPT to be so costly that you would not consider purchasing it?”
The waitlist also lists the advantages of ChatGPT Professional, including no “blackout,” or downtime windows, no filtering, and an infinite number of ChatGPT messages, or “at least 2x the standard daily limit.”
The waitlist form’s submitters may be chosen for a pilot of ChatGPT Professional, according to OpenAI, but the service is still in its testing phase and won’t be made generally available “at this moment.”
Additionally, according to reports, Microsoft would integrate ChatGPT’s AI into its Office program and Bing.
However, the issue remains: Will ChatGPT drive away professionals like content writers?
As of early December last year, ChatGPT had over a million users, an impressive user base by any standard. But maintaining the service is expensive.
Sam Altman, co-founder, and CEO of OpenAI described ChatGPT’s operational costs as “eye-watering,” with a total compute cost of a few cents for each chat. (The Azure cloud of Microsoft hosts ChatGPT.)
A $10 billion investment from Microsoft is speculated, therefore OpenAI is under obligation to make money on products like ChatGPT. Considering the over $1 billion that has already been spent in the firm, OpenAI anticipates earning just $200 million in 2023.
This week, Semafor revealed that Microsoft is aiming to acquire a 49% share in OpenAI, putting the business at about $29 billion in value.
According to the agreement, Microsoft would receive 75% of OpenAI’s profits up until it recoups its investment, while extra investors would receive 49% and OpenAI would hold onto the remaining 2% of the equity.
With a “capped-profit” business plan that restricts investors’ profits to 100 times their investment, or maybe less in the future, OpenAI features a unique corporate structure.
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