OpenAI, the renowned artificial intelligence (AI) company, has unveiled plans to introduce a new subscription tier for its popular AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT. This new offering, called ChatGPT Business, is specifically tailored to meet the needs of enterprise customers and professionals who require more control over their data.
In a recent blog post, OpenAI stated that ChatGPT Business will adhere to their API's data usage policies, ensuring that end users' data will not be used to train their models by default. OpenAI plans to make ChatGPT Business available in the coming months, following the successful launch of their first subscription tier, ChatGPT Plus, which debuted in February and is priced at $20 per month.
ChatGPT has rapidly gained popularity, with an estimated 100 million monthly active users just two months after its initial launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history. To explore new revenue streams, OpenAI introduced plug-ins for ChatGPT in March, expanding the bot's functionality by granting access to third-party knowledge sources and databases, including the web.
Despite some controversies and bans, ChatGPT has proven to be a publicity win for OpenAI, attracting significant media attention and generating numerous memes on social media. However, operating expenses for ChatGPT are reportedly substantial, with compute costs totaling a few cents per chat, according to OpenAI's co-founder and CEO, Sam Altman. In addition to ChatGPT Business, OpenAI also announced a new feature that allows all ChatGPT users to disable chat history. Conversations started with chat history disabled will not be used to train OpenAI's models and will not appear in the history sidebar. However, the conversations will be retained for 30 days and reviewed as needed for monitoring abuse. OpenAI has also implemented new privacy features, possibly aimed at addressing regulatory concerns. ChatGPT data can now be exported upon request, with users able to receive their data in a file sent to the email address associated with their OpenAI account.
These new capabilities come at a time when regulatory scrutiny is increasing over OpenAI's data practices. Italy recently banned ChatGPT for possible privacy violations, alleging unlawful data processing and failure to prevent minors from accessing the service. France, Spain, and Germany have also initiated probes into OpenAI and its commercial services, focusing on ChatGPT's adherence to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
With the introduction of ChatGPT Business and the implementation of new privacy features, OpenAI aims to address the needs of enterprise customers while also addressing regulatory concerns. As ChatGPT continues to evolve and gain popularity, OpenAI remains committed to providing innovative and responsible AI solutions to its users.
