Sam Altman, the CEO at OpenAI, announced on Wednesday that ChatGPT’s new viral AI image features would be delayed for free users, citing higher demand than the company expected. As of March 26, OpenAI had only rolled out the GPT-4o native image generation features to ChatGPT Pro, Plus, and Teams subscribers.
According to Altman, ChatGPT’s new AI image feature will be postponed for free users despite the feature’s unexpected success. Soon after its release, users on social media discovered the tool’s remarkable ability to replicate various artistic styles, including transforming photos into legendary Studio Ghibli’s animation aesthetic.
The OpenAI CEO joined this social media trend by updating his profile picture on X to a Studio Ghibli-style image and inviting users to generate an improved version for him using ChatGPT. ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Team subscribers also flooded platforms X and Instagram with ChatGPT-powered Ghibli-style pictures.
In recent months, OpenAI has reportedly faced similar hiccups around product launches, repeatedly blaming a lack of computing capacity. The U.S.-based AI company disabled signups shortly after launching Sora in December. Perhaps the company’s planned $500B Stargate data center project will help solve those capacity constraints.
ChatGPT excludes free users during the initial roll-out of the new image feature
GPT-4o just got an INSANE upgrade!
OpenAI just dropped native Image Generation in GPT-4o.
Image & Text quality is insane. 100% AI
10 wild examples (prompts included):
1. Polaroid style photographs pic.twitter.com/FRPIsVkMYW
— Min Choi (@minchoi) March 26, 2025
OpenAI initially stated that it would enable this new image generation feature even for free users. The image-generation tool, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o model, was introduced just a day before Altman’s announcement, giving users the ability to create AI-generated images directly within ChatGPT. Unfortunately, CEO Altman disclosed that the feature will be delayed for free users due to the overwhelming demand by existing paying subscribers to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Team tiers.
However, OpenAI still intends to offer the image-generation tool to free-tier users, albeit with certain limitations. Similar to its DALL-E 3 model, OpenAI is expected to introduce a daily usage cap for free users, allowing them to access the feature but within restricted limits. The company has yet to specify the exact quota, but it may adjust dynamically based on system demand.
“Images in ChatGPT are way more popular than we expected (and we had pretty high expectations)…rollout to our free tier is unfortunately going to be delayed for a while.”
For now, OpenAI’s paid subscribers will continue to enjoy the exclusive benefits of AI-driven image creation while free users await further updates on when their access will finally arrive. Still, OpenAI boasts significant improvements to the GPT-4o model over previous versions–particularly in image detail and text rendering.
OpenAI improves on earlier image generation versions with GPT-4o
Unlike older diffusion-based techniques, GPT-4o uses an autoregressive approach, generating images sequentially from top to bottom and left to right. According to OpenAI, this method enhances accuracy, especially in rendering complex elements such as text within images, an area where AI models have traditionally struggled.
Altman said this new GPT-4o feature represented a new “high-water mark” for ChatGPT in allowing creative freedom. He added that people are going to create “some really amazing stuff” and “some stuff that may offend people.”
Altman said what OpenAI aimed for was that the tool did not create offensive stuff unless users wanted it to, in which case, within reason, it did.
The OpenAI CEO also pointed out that putting this intellectual freedom and control in the hands of users was the right thing to do, although the OpenAI team would observe how it goes and listen to society. He added that respecting the very wide bounds society chose to set for AI was also the right thing to do, and it is increasingly important as the AI industry gets closer to AGI.
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