ChatGPT, the AI language model developed by OpenAI, has announced that it will be temporarily pausing new sign-ups for its premium service, ChatGPT Plus. The announcement was made after the surge in usage post-dev day exceeded the company’s current capacity
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI wrote “the surge in usage post dev day has exceeded our capacity and we want to make sure everyone has a great experience.”
In a bid to sustain its initial advantage amidst growing competition, OpenAI has accelerated its efforts by unveiling GPT-4, introducing plug-ins enabling ChatGPT integration with additional services, launching the DALL-E 3 image generator, and introducing an enterprise tier.
On its dev day, OpenAI introduced its GPT builder interface. A simple-to-use interface for building custom GPT agents with zero coding knowledge. Most platforms are looking to bring creators on board to earn revenue. Similarly, OpenAI is set to inaugurate a GPT store later this month. This will provide users with the capability to share and sell their personalized GPT bots. Sam Altman says OpenAI is going to “pay people who build the most useful and the most used GPTs” a portion of the company’s revenue.
ChatGPT Quick Growth
ChatGPT aims to be an enduring platform. Hence, OpenAI has been inviting developers with incentives. For example, Sam Altman gifted all the attendants of Dev Day a $500 credit on the platform. These incentives have led developers including those from Fortune 500 companies to make use of ChatGPT tools. ChatGPT reported it has over 2 million developers using the AI platform. Furthermore, the service reached an estimated 100 million monthly users within just two months of launching.
Ultimately, the massive adoption and growing user rate as new tools are integrated has overwhelmed the Microsoft Azure-supported platform. The premium service costs $20 per month. OpenAI has assured users that they can still sign up to be notified within the app when subscriptions reopen. Interestingly, the halt in new sign-ups comes only a few days after the platform suffered a DDOS attack. The cyber attack led to service outages affecting users across the globe.
