OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has decided to make its AI-powered image generation tool available for free to users of the popular chatbot.
The powerful tool, which can generate images with mastery and transform photos into anime-style drawings, went viral after its launch by the company last week—until then, it was only available to subscribers.
On his X profile (formerly Twitter), Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, announced on Tuesday (April 1) that the feature would be made available for free to users. At first, everyone thought it was an April Fool’s joke, but he later confirmed that it was true.
It sounds too good to be true, but Altman also mentioned that users who are not subscribed to ChatGPT Plus will be limited to just three image generations per day. To generate unlimited images, users must subscribe.
Although the tool became a massive hit and almost overloaded the company’s servers due to the large number of active users generating images simultaneously, the trend of creating images in the style of the Japanese studio Studio Ghibli sparked quite a bit of controversy on social media.
In addition to accusations that artificial intelligence was, in some way, “stealing” the artistic vision of Hayao Miyazaki, the co-founder of the studio, many people expressed concerns about the potentially “offensive” images the tool might generate.
“What we would like to achieve is that the tool does not create offensive content—unless the user wants it, and in that case, within reason, it does,” Altman explained in a post.
“As we stated in our model specification, we believe that putting this intellectual freedom and control in the hands of users is the right thing to do, but we will monitor how it develops and listen to society.”
we are launching a new thing today—images in chatgpt!
two things to say about it:
1. it’s an incredible technology/product. i remember seeing some of the first images come out of this model and having a hard time they were really made by AI. we think people will love it, and we…
— Sam Altman (@sama) March 25, 2025
Photo and video: X @sama. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
