How much will the “professional” subscription to ChatGPT cost. Microsoft invests 10 billion in Open AI

OpenAI, the company behind the ChatGPT language model, one of the most popular new technologies, is getting a new investment from Microsoft. On top of the billions the software giant has already invested, another $10 billion round is coming. Microsoft already plans to integrate the company’s technologies into its products such as Bing and Office, and ChatGPT servers already run on Azure infrastructure. Along with news of this investment comes information about the “Pro” version of the chat service.

ChatGPT is already testing a monthly subscription

The $10 billion promised by Microsoft, is part of a multi-year investment. So OpenAI will get from the company enhanced infrastructure on the Azure platform, with supercomputers that can run complex AI tasks. This should significantly speed up ChatGPT services, which is necessary if it is to attract more and more users. Currently, with one million active users, the services are significantly slower than they were at launch in November.

Those who want to use ChatGPT at faster speeds, however, will soon have the option of paying for it. We already knew that OpenAI was considering launching a Pro version, and now we have the first details of what the subscription will offer and how much it will cost. Some users were briefly able to access an upgrade menu to the Pro version, which offers higher speed than the one for “free” users, availability even when servers are busy, and priority access to new features before public availability.

New ChatGPT pricing! pic.twitter.com/j7cGtcDSSn

– Zahid Khawaja (@chillzaza_) January 21, 2023

All of this could be available for $42 a month, a pretty steep price for what is currently an online “toy” that often provides the wrong answers. Of course, with a little creativity, you can get ChatGPT to do a lot more than it’s trained or allowed to do.

The fact is that this technology is just in its infancy, and Microsoft seems to be trying to “steal” a march by forming an alliance with OpenAI. Meanwhile, Google, which has been investing in AI technologies for many years, doesn’t seem to have any alternatives to ChatGPT yet, at least not ones it can offer to the general public.