OpenAI cited unsustainably high demand as the reason it delayed rollout of its new image generation feature to free users. This feature, which is powered by GPT-4o, enables users to upload images to chat with and request edits. As of now, it is only available to paid subscribers on ChatGPT Pro, Plus and Teams.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman broke the news on X yesterday, saying he was surprised by the feature’s popularity.
"Images in ChatGPT are wayyyy more popular than we expected (and we had pretty high expectations)," Altman stated.
The ability to generate pictures came to the conversational tool on Tuesday as a native, built-in feature of GPT-4o. OpenAI had vastly overestimated the level of user engagement, but they were not ready for the Quixotic demand. This has forced the company to delay releasing the feature to all users.
The cloud-based company intends to broaden access to the new image generation feature in the near future. OpenAI is said to be struggling with capacity constraints in recent months. Until now, the company blamed service outages on a shortage of compute capacity, which the company now says is driving this latest delay.
The addition of this AI image feature ChatGPT is a notable upgrade and expansion to what ChatGPT can do. By allowing these types of uploads and edits, creators can unlock more diverse avenues for creativity through the technology.