OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently revealed a surprising news on social media: Despite the monthly fee of ChatGPT Pro, the service has not been profitable. "It's incredible that we are currently at a loss on OpenAI Pro subscription!" He further explained that the user usage is far beyond expectations, resulting in a sharp increase in operating costs.
Altman's remarks coincided with OpenAI's announcement a month ago that it would price the ChatGPT Pro at $200, a price ten times the price of Plus subscription. After paying this high fee, users will gain unlimited access to advanced voice features and can use the o1 professional model, which is designed to provide the best answers to complex questions.
However, unexpectedly, this high-priced version has been widely welcomed by users, which caught Artman off guard. He mentioned that he personally participated in the pricing decision and believed that the price was enough to bring profit. But what exactly caused the losses? Although Altmann did not elaborate, this may be related to the working mechanism of OpenAI's o1 model.
Typically, large language models can better optimize hardware utilization when processing multiple user requests. However, the o1 model adopts the Chain of Thought method to solve the problem in steps. This approach usually generates more tokens than traditional models such as GPT-4, and more tokens means longer generation time, which consumes more hardware resources and leads to a significant increase in operating costs.
Currently, OpenAI has not made clear how it will adjust its subscription fees for ChatGPT Pro to improve revenue. Whether or not it will tighten the strategy of using high-cost models "unlimited" remains an open question.
Meanwhile, OpenAI’s profit challenge is at a critical time for its transformation into a profitable enterprise. The company recently announced that its profitable division will be transformed into a public interest company (PBC) to attract more investment. Under the new structure, PBC will be responsible for day-to-day operations, while the non-profit sector will continue to maintain a significant influence on the profit sector.
Despite the pressure of profit, OpenAI recently successfully raised $6.6 billion in funds, providing solid financial support for its future development. In addition, Altman expressed confidence in the future of artificial intelligence in a blog post, believing that the company has mastered the methods of building general artificial intelligence (AGI) and predicted that by 2025, AI agents will officially join the labor market.
Key points:
ChatGPT Pro's $200 monthly subscription is still unprofitable, and user usage exceeds expectations.
OpenAI's o1 model adopts a "thinking chain" approach, resulting in higher operating costs.
OpenAI plans to transform into a public interest company in order to attract more investment and stay growing.