OpenAI's 12 days of shipmas is the gift that keeps giving — a new $200 ChatGPT Pro monthly subscription gives exclusive access to the most reliable responses: "Oh, so Christmas present is - $200/month? Thanks Samta!"

What you need to know

• OpenAI's just kicked off its 12 days of shipmas by unveiling ChatGPT Pro, a new $200 monthly subscription plan with unlimited access to OpenAI o1, GPT-4o, and Advanced Voice mode.
• OpenAI's o1 reasoning model shipped out of preview via a new update. It's available for ChatGPT Plus and Team users.
• The company will continue offering its ChatGPT Plus service for $20 per month with the same features, including access to the o1 reasoning model (which Sam Altman says most users will enjoy).

Earlier this week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced 12 days of OpenAI. According to the ChatGPT maker's post on X (formerly Twitter):

"Each weekday, we will have a livestream with a launch or demo, some big ones and some stocking stuffers."

The much-anticipated launches and demos will take place over the next 12 days at 1000hrs PT. And as it happens, the first livestream already is right on track. The ChatGPT maker made two major launches:

1. OpenAI o1(referred to as the smartest model in the world by Sam Altman) is broadly available to ChatGPT users and is reportedly "smarter, faster, and more features (eg multimodality) than o1-preview."
2. The AI firm also unveiled ChatGPT Pro, a new $200 monthly subscription plan with unlimited access to OpenAI o1, GPT-4o, and Advanced Voice mode.

Despite claims that OpenAI and other top AI labs are struggling to develop advanced AI models, Sam Altman is seemingly living up to his claims, "There's no wall" to scaling laws by shipping the OpenAI o1 reasoning model out of preview via a new update.

The model is already available for ChatGPT Plus and Team users. It's expected to start shipping to Enterprise and Edu users next week. Perhaps more interestingly, OpenAI just debuted a new monthly subscription plan for ChatGPT dubbed ChatGPT Pro.

For $200 per month, you'll get unlimited access to the "smartest model in the world" alongside GPT-4o and OpenAI's Advanced Voice mode feature. It's also worth noting that the tier ships with o1 pro mode.

For context, o1 Pro mode is an advanced version of OpenAI o1. It leverages more computing power to provide well-curated and detailed answers to complex questions. OpenAI plans to bolster o1 Pro's capabilities by making it more powerful with compute-intensive productivity features.

OpenAI releases "Pro plan" for ChatGPT from r/OpenAI

OpenAI's exorbitant monthly charge on its new ChatGPT Pro plan could be attributed to the vast resources and computing power leveraged to provide the "most reliable responses." Early benchmarks show great performance across math, science, and coding.

The launch of ChatGPT Pro isn't entirely surprising. Amid OpenAI's bankruptcy reports, a report emerged claiming the ChatGPT maker had plans to hike the price for its next-gen AI models up to $2,000 per month. The news was received with mixed emotions with some indicating, "That's a price point for an employee, not a chatbot. The only way it would make any sense is if it was legit AGI."

What does this mean for ChatGPT Plus?

As you may know, OpenAI already has a $20 monthly subscription plan, ChatGPT Plus. But with the debut of ChatGPT Pro, things seem a tad complicated. OpenAI will continue to offer ChatGPT Plus to its users for $20 per month with the same services and features as before, including early access to new features and more.

Sam Altman indicated that the o1 model will also be available for ChatGPT Plus and that most users will be happy with it. However, Pro users will have an extra edge as the model "can think harder for the hardest problems."

The launch of ChatGPT Pro seems like a move by OpenAI to diversify its revenue streams amid financial struggles. Earlier this week, a report suggested OpenAI might consider integrating ads into ChatGPT but Sam Altman said it would be a "last resort" as he's not a big fan of the AI plus ads combination.