Barret Zoph, a OpenAI research leader was recently demonstrating the new GPT-4o model and its ability to detect human emotions through a smartphone camera, when ChatGPT mistakenly identified his face as a wooden table. After a brief laugh, Zoph assured GPT-4o that it’s not a table and asked the AI tool to take another look at the app’s live video, instead of a photo he previously shared. “Ah, that makes more sense,” ChatGPT’s AI voice said, before describing his facial expression and his possible emotions.
On Monday, OpenAI launched a new model for ChatGPT that can process text, audio and images. In a surprising twist, the company announced that this model, GPT-4o, would be available for free, with no subscription required. It’s a departure from the company’s previous release of GPT-4, which launched in March last year for those who pay OpenAI’s $20-per-month subscription to ChatGPT Plus. In this current version, many of the features that were previously prohibited for paying subscribers, such as memory and web browsing, are now being rolled out to free users as well.
Last year, when I tested a nascent version of ChatGPT’s web browsing capabilities, it was buggy but powerful enough to make a subscription seem worthwhile to early adopters looking to experiment with the latest technology. Since OpenAI’s latest AI model, as well as previously closed features, are available without a subscription, you might be wondering if that $20 a month is enough. still it’s worth it. Here’s a quick breakdown to help you understand what’s available with the free version of OpenAI versus what you get with ChatGPT Plus.
What’s available with free ChatGPT?
To reiterate, you don’t need any kind of special subscription to start using the OpenAI GPT-4o model today. Just know that your rate is limited to fewer messages per hour than paid users, so make sure you’re careful with the questions you ask the chatbot or you’ll quickly eat up your message allotment.
In addition to limited access to GPT-4o, non-paying users received a major update to their overall user experience, with multiple features that were previously only for paying customers. The GPT Store, where anyone can launch a version of ChatGPT with custom instructions, is now widely available. Free users can also use ChatGPT’s web browsing tool and memory features, as well as upload photos and files for the chatbot to analyze.
What’s still closed in ChatGPT Plus?
While GPT-4o is available without a subscription, you may want to keep ChatGPT Plus for two reasons: access to more prompts and newer features. “You can use the model a lot more in Plus,” Zoph tells WIRED. “There are also many other interesting things in the future to come.” Compared to non-subscribers, ChatGPT Plus subscribers can send GPT-4o five times as many messages before having to wait or switch to a less powerful model. So, if you want to spend a good amount of time messaging with OpenAI’s most powerful option, a subscription is required.
Although some of the previously exclusive features of ChatGPT Plus are rolling out to non-paying users, the flashiest updates are still being offered behind OpenAI’s paywall first. The impressive voice mode that Zoph demonstrated on stage is coming sometime in the next few weeks to ChatGPT Plus subscribers.
In OpenAI’s demo videos, the AI’s bubbly voice sounds funnier than previous iterations and is capable of answering questions in response to a live video stream. “Honestly, I think the ways people are going to discover use cases around this are going to be incredibly creative,” Zoph says. During the presentation, he also showed how voice mode could be used to translate between English and Italian. After the presentation, the company released another video showing voice translation working in real time.