OpenAI: ChatGPT users will no longer have to sign up for access

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI said Monday that it's making its free GPT 3.5 version of the popular AI chatbot available to users without them needing to sign-up first.

“For anyone that has been curious about AI’s potential but didn’t want to go through the steps to set-up an account, start using ChatGPT today,” the company said about the update.

Currently users wanting to use the “free-to-use AI system” had to create an account with OpenAI to access the bot.

It appears that those wanting to become Plus subscription members and get access to the more advanced ChatGPT-4 – which includes OpenAI’s DALL·E 2 text-to-image generative model – will still need to create an account.

The Sam Altman-run company said it will be rolling out the user perk gradually, posting the announcement on X Monday.

The Microsoft-backed tech company also said it was introducing additional content safeguards for instant access users, “such as blocking prompts and generations in a wider range of categories.”

The company pointed out that creating an account offers extra benefits including, “the ability to save and review your chat history, share chats, and unlock additional features like voice conversations and custom instructions.”

OpenAI also wanted to remind instant users that whatever prompts are input into ChatGPT can be used by the company to further train its models unless they choose to opt out in their settings.

More than 100 million people across 185 countries use the question-answer large language model (LLM) weekly, according to OpenAI.

Last week, it was reported that Microsoft and OpenAI are collaborating to build a $100 billion dollar data-center complex to house an AI supercomputer named Stargate.