Human-like AI that costs $20,000 a MONTH ‘secretly being built by ChatGPT maker’ and brainy bot will be ‘PhD level’
A BRAINY AI helper built by the creators of ChatGPT could cost $20,000 a month to use – equivalent to £15,000 in Britain.
The secret “AI agent” is said to be in development at OpenAI HQ.
And it’s expected to be the most expensive of a selection of AI helpers currently being developed.
Each of the virtual bots will be built to do different kinds of jobs, according a report by The Information.
And the $20,000-a-month version is said to be capable of doing PhD-level work to help top scientists.
An AI agent is a step above a regular chatbot.
With a chatbot, you’ll ask questions and get answers – like having a conversation with a very smart person.
But chatbots can’t do much on their own. They need your guidance along the way.
An AI agent is designed to make decisions and take actions on its own. So it can get on with work even when you’re not there – just like a human.
And if something about how they’re working needs to change, they can tweak their own behaviour.
They’re also meant to learn and improve over time as they get more experience.
OpenAI is reportedly building several AI agents that can do different types of jobs.
One of the agents listed in the report is a “high-income knowledge worker” that will cost $2,000 a month.
There’s also a software developer agent designed for programming that is said to have a $10,000 monthly price tag.
And the costliest of the lot is an agent that can help with “PhD-level research”, coming in at a whopping $20,000 a month.
That would be by far the most expensive product that OpenAI has ever put out.
Regular ChatGPT is free, letting normal people use it for everyday tasks.
And then there’s a ChatGPT Plus tier that costs $20 a month, giving you some perks – including more powerful chatbot versions, some video generation, and extended limits.
Then the top tier (at least currently) is ChatGPT Pro, which costs $200 a month.
That includes unlimited access to advanced voice chatting, a pro mode for answering “the hardest questions”, and research previews.
CHATGPT TIERS – WHAT DO YOU CURRENTLY GET?
Here's how the tiers, perks, and pricing breaks down for ChatGPT...
ChatGPT – Free
- Access to GPT‑4o mini
- Real-time data from the web with search
- Limited access to GPT‑4o and o3‑mini
- Limited access to file uploads, data analysis, image generation, and voice mode
- Use custom GPTs
ChatGPT Plus – $20 a month
- Everything in Free
- Extended limits on messaging, file uploads, data analysis, and image generation
- Standard and advanced voice mode with video and screensharing
- Access to deep research and multiple reasoning models (o3‑mini, o3‑mini‑high, and o1)
- Access to a research preview of GPT‑4.5, our largest model yet
- Create and use projects, tasks, and custom GPTs
- Limited access to Sora video generation
- Opportunities to test new features
ChatGPT Pro – $200 a month
- Everything in Plus
- Unlimited access to all reasoning models and GPT‑4o
- Unlimited access to advanced voice, with higher limits for video and screensharing
- Access to o1 pro mode, which uses more compute for the best answers to the hardest questions
- Extended access to deep research
- Extended access to Sora video generation
- Access to a research preview of Operator (U.S. only)
Picture Credit: Alamy Stock Photo
But OpenAI’s new roster of agents would go even further – if they do launch.
However, they’re clearly not aimed at the general public, and would instead by built for people doing very professional work.
Sadly OpenAI hasn’t yet confirmed plans to release these new pricing tiers.
The Sun has asked OpenAI for comment and will update this story with any response.