OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman has revealed tentative plans to roll out the company’s Deep Research AI agent to a wider userbase.
Altman said to the company is likely to initially offer 10 uses per month for ChatGPT Plus subscribers and two uses in the free tier, with intentions to scale up over time.
He anticipates that some users might find the service worth as much as $1,000 per month.
Deep Research is currently only available to OpenAI Pro subscribers that shell out $200 a month.
Emphasizing a longer-term vision, Altman acknowledged the need for a dynamic payment model to accommodate those users who engage with OpenAI’s Deep Research tool extensively.
The company has been surprised by the demand for deep research capabilities, a tool powered by OpenAI’s o3 model designed for exhaustive web browsing and data analysis.
Some users reportedly interact with Deep Research dozens of times each day, showcasing its potential value despite unpredictable response times and occasional credibility issues with the sources, as highlighted in a recent analysis by ARK Invest’s Frank Downing.
The buzz around ChatGPT Plus and Deep Research plays into the intense competition in AI development.
Altman’s strides with OpenAI come amid stark competition and criticism, notably from Elon Musk. Musk recently made headlines with a substantial $97 billion bid to take control of OpenAI, questioning its shift to a profit-driven model.
Altman had earlier said that OpenAI isn’t making much money with the Pro subscription against its expectations.
With the plan already hitting a 10-times the average generative AI industry pricing, hikes are unlikely to be the solution.
Any plans for pivot toward a pay-per-use model have been tricky to implement for non-technical users. For devs, of course API are the go-to option.
Perhaps, it is the rise of third-party interfaces that call APIs of multiple AIs like OpenAI’s GPT, Google’s Gemini and even integrate open-source models like DeepSeek, can present a solution here for end users, who can then pay by the use.