OpenAI launches $200 ChatGPT pro plan for advanced research
OpenAI has unveiled ChatGPT Pro, a premium subscription plan priced at $200 per month, aimed at researchers, engineers, and advanced users tackling complex problems. This plan provides access to OpenAI’s most advanced models and tools, including the o1 pro mode, which promises improved performance for challenging tasks across fields like data science, programming, and case law analysis.
In its announcement, OpenAI highlighted the growing computational demands of cutting-edge AI capabilities, emphasizing the need for robust tools to address increasingly sophisticated challenges. ChatGPT Pro aims to offer a solution with unlimited access to advanced models like OpenAI o1, o1-mini, and GPT-4o, as well as Advanced Voice features.
Enhanced thinking power and new use cases
The o1 pro mode, a key feature of ChatGPT Pro, leverages additional computational resources to deliver more accurate and comprehensive responses. According to OpenAI, external evaluations show that o1 pro mode excels at difficult machine learning benchmarks in areas like mathematics, science, and programming compared to standard o1 and o1-preview models.
Following the announcement, OpenAI also revealed it is awarding 10 grants of ChatGPT Pro to support researchers working on projects with significant societal impact. The inaugural grants will go to ten researchers, including Dr. Catherine Brownstein of Boston Children’s Hospital, who studies rare diseases, and Dr. Derya Unutmaz of The Jackson Laboratory, focused on cancer immunotherapy.
Mixed reception and questions of value
Despite its advanced offerings, ChatGPT Pro has been met with skepticism. Critics question whether the $200 monthly price tag is justified, especially when OpenAI has yet to provide concrete examples of scenarios where o1 pro mode outperforms regular o1 in a meaningful way.
“Have OpenAI shared any concrete examples of prompts that fail in regular o1 but succeed in o1 pro?” asked Simon Willison, a British computer scientist. Critics also point to cases where o1 pro mode faltered, such as failing to solve a Sudoku puzzle or misinterpreting an optical illusion joke—tasks it was ostensibly designed to handle better.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the criticism, clarifying that ChatGPT Pro is not intended for general users. “Most users will be very happy with the o1 in the [ChatGPT] Plus tier!” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter). Altman emphasized that the free and Plus tiers would remain the best options for the majority of users.
A niche product with future potential
While the value proposition of ChatGPT Pro may seem ambiguous for now, OpenAI plans to enhance the plan over time with additional compute-intensive features. The company is positioning ChatGPT Pro as a tool for specialized professionals who require research-grade AI capabilities.
Still, questions linger. Will researchers and engineers find the $2,400 annual subscription worthwhile? Or will the Pro plan struggle to gain traction amid criticisms of its unclear advantages?
