OpenAI temporarily suspends new subscriptions to Pro plan due to surge in demand for Astra

Temporarily suspending only the plan with the highest usage limit... “There is no effect on existing accounts.”

(San Francisco = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kwon Young-jeon = Open AI, developer of ChatGPT, has temporarily suspended new subscriptions to the top ‘Pro’ plan due to the surge in demand for its new artificial intelligence (AI) model ‘Astra’.

On the 10th (local time), Tivo Sotio Open AI product and platform manager announced through social networking service (SNS)

General Manager Sotio explained, “This rate plan is placing the greatest burden on the system, so we have decided to take the minimum possible measures to ensure that we can continue to provide the widest range of services possible,” adding, “There will be no impact on existing accounts.”

OpenAI operates ChatGPT paid plans by dividing them into low-cost ‘High’ ($8 per month), standard ‘Plus’ ($20 per month), and high-end ‘Pro’ plans.

Among these, the 'Pro' plan is divided into $100 and $200 per month, and the one that has been discontinued this time is the $200 plan, which has the highest usage limit.

General Sotio said, “We are working to expand (computing) capacity as quickly as possible,” adding that plans other than the $200 Pro plan and application programming interface (API) that are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis are still available.

Recently, OpenAI introduced the 'GPT-6 Astra' model with the declaration that it has 'reached artificial general intelligence (AGI)'.

In fact, Astra passed all 48 steps of the 'Captcha' test used to distinguish robots and solved several difficult math problems, showing rapid progress in the fields of AI reasoning, academics, coding, and computer use.

However, OpenAI did not reveal specific figures such as changes in the number of new subscribers and users or daily token usage after the Astra announcement. There was no mention of how long the suspension of subscription to the plan would last.

Meanwhile, OpenAI announced on this day that it had signed a contract with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) to provide AI services, including Astra, to the public sector at a 50% discount.