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OpenAI has officially extended its powerful image generation feature to all ChatGPT users, including those on the free tier. The rollout, which completed Tuesday, has triggered extraordinary growth metrics that eclipse even ChatGPT's original launch. The AI assistant has experienced unprecedented user acquisition following the feature’s wider release, with CEO Sam Altman reporting on X that they "added one million users in the last hour.
" This represents a dramatic acceleration compared to ChatGPT's initial launch 26 months ago, which took five days to reach the same milestone. OpenAI’s GPT-4o image generation capabilities excel at rendering text accurately within images, following specific visual prompts with precision, and leveraging the model's extensive knowledge base for contextual understanding. These attributes have transformed the tool from a novelty into what the company calls "a practical tool with precision and power.
" The feature has gained particular traction for creating Studio Ghibli-style artwork , with thousands of users sharing their AI-generated creations across social media platforms. This specific use case has contributed significantly to the viral spread of the technology, though the overwhelming popularity has strained OpenAI's infrastructure. "It’s super fun seeing people love images in ChatGPT," Altman acknowledged on social media, "But our GPUs are melting.
We are going to temporarily introduce some rate limits while we work on making it more efficient." The company subsequently implemented a restriction limiting free users to three image generations daily, while maintaining higher allowances for paid subscribers. Studio Ghibli's distinctive art style has fuelled ChatGPT's image generator's popularity.
Beyond the popular Studio Ghibli-style creations, the technical advances in GPT-4o's image generation capabilities also represent significant breakthroughs in AI visual understanding. The recent update has also allowed the system to overcome previous limitations that plagued AI image generators, including what some call "the wine glass problem" — the inability of earlier models to generate images of completely full wine glasses despite clear instructions. The image generation feature initially launched on March 25 for paying subscribers across ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Team plans before expanding to free users through a carefully managed rollout process.
The phased approach proved necessary as computational demands strained OpenAI’s resources. As for the recent surge in popularity, it comes at a strategic moment for OpenAI, which recently secured a historic $40 billion funding round , valuing the company at $300 billion and establishing it among the world's most valuable private companies. The company reports that ChatGPT has now grown to 500 million users since launching in November 2022, with the image generation feature potentially accelerating adoption across new user segments.
As OpenAI celebrates this milestone, competition in the AI space continues to intensify globally. Just days before the GPT-4o image generator rollout, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek launched an upgrade to its V3 large language model, which the company claims delivers significant improvements in reasoning and coding capabilities. With DeepSeek's open-source AI models gaining traction and reportedly achieving performance comparable to OpenAI's offerings at substantially lower training costs, the democratization of advanced AI tools appears to be accelerating on multiple fronts.
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