OpenAI said it aims to make it easier for people to ‘experience the benefits of AI’, but the company may also be attempting to stay competitive in a more crowded AI market.
OpenAI plans to bring its flagship product ChatGPT to more people by removing the need to set-up an account before using the chatbot.
The company said this update is being made to reach those who are “curious about AI’s potential but didn’t want to go through the steps to set-up an account”. The update is being rolled out “gradually” to users.
OpenAI also said it has introduced “additional content safeguards” such as blocking prompts and generations in a wider range of categories. Meanwhile, the company still recommends that users eventually create an account for their ChatGPT use.
“There are many benefits to creating an account including the ability to save and review your chat history, share chats, and unlock additional features like voice conversations and custom instructions,” OpenAI said in a blogpost.
Staying competitive
OpenAI said the decision was made to make it easier for people to “experience the benefits of AI”, but the company may also be attempting to stay competitive in a more crowded AI market.
ChatGPT had a rapid rise to success when it first launched in November 2022, rapidly reaching more than 100m users. But competition has grown significantly since then, with a myriad of AI models offering services similar to ChatGPT.
For example, French start-up Mistral – which only launched in May last year – hit unicorn status last December after securing €385m in a round backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia and Salesforce. At the time, the start-up was valued at around $2bn.
Mistral also received backing by Microsoft, in a deal that will see the start-up’s commercial language models brought to Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform. The software giant invested billions in OpenAI over the past couple of years.
But reports suggest Microsoft isn’t moving away from its partnership with OpenAI. A recent report by The Information said both companies are drawing up plans for a data centre project that would contain an AI supercomputer worth $100bn.
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