OpenAI Discusses Monthly Subscription Fee for Next-Generation AI Model
Developing Chatbot and Inference Model... Possible Release This Fall
Considering Subscription Fee Increase to Cover Advanced Model Development Costs
OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, is reportedly discussing setting the monthly subscription fee for its next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) model currently under development at $2,000 (approximately 2.67 million KRW).
On the 6th (local time), the U.S. IT specialized media The Information reported that OpenAI is internally debating setting the usage fee for its latest AI model at up to $2,000. Previously, OpenAI defined five stages of AI innovation, stating that the first stage is chatbots like GPT-4o, and the second stage is 'reasoners' with human-level problem-solving abilities. It is known that OpenAI is currently developing 'Strawberry,' which corresponds to the reasoning model. This model appears to have capabilities suitable for handling tasks requiring multi-step reasoning, such as solving complex math problems, developing market strategies, and solving word puzzles. The Information reported that Strawberry could be released as early as this fall.
Alongside this, OpenAI is preparing 'Orion' as its flagship large language model (LLM) service to succeed GPT-4. 'Orion' is designed to surpass previous models in language understanding and generation by adding the ability to process multimodal inputs such as text, images, and videos.
The development and operation of OpenAI’s advanced models are expected to incur enormous costs, making it difficult to cover expenses with the current fee levels. Currently, OpenAI charges $20 (approximately 27,000 KRW) per month for ChatGPT Premium, which allows users to access the GPT-4o model. OpenAI anticipated that the ChatGPT Premium service would generate $2 billion in annual revenue, but this alone is far from sufficient to cover platform operating costs. OpenAI’s estimated annual expenditure on technology development is $7 billion, and when adding data center usage fees and labor costs, the spending compared to revenue is enormous. Ultimately, the last option OpenAI is considering is a $2,000 monthly subscription fee.
Meanwhile, on the 5th, OpenAI announced that the number of paid users for the enterprise version of ChatGPT has surpassed 1 million. This achievement came one year after the release of ChatGPT Enterprise, the enterprise version, in August last year. This figure includes users of ChatGPT Team Plan for small businesses launched in January and ChatGPT Edu, a program for universities. OpenAI stated that the number of paid enterprise users has increased significantly this year but did not disclose how many new companies have joined. However, it added that about half of the enterprise users are based in the United States.
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