OpenAI Aims to Attract Developers With Reduced Expenses Through Upcoming Changes: Report

OpenAI plans to introduce major updates to developers next month to make it cheaper and faster to build software applications based on its artificial intelligence models, as the ChatGPT maker tries to get more companies to use its technology, sources briefed on the plans told Reuters.

Updates include adding in-memory storage to its developer tools for running AI models. This could theoretically cut costs for app makers by up to 20x, addressing a major concern among partners that the costs of running OpenAI’s powerful models can quickly add up as they try to build a sustainable business developing and selling AI software.

The company also plans to unveil new tools, such as vision capabilities, that will allow developers to build apps that can analyze images and describe them with potential use cases from entertainment to medicine.

The new features are an indication of the company’s effort to expand beyond the consumer sensation to also offer a successful developer platform, as envisioned by its CEO Sam Altman. The company operated in relative obscurity outside the tech industry as a non-profit company founded by Elon Musk and Altman in 2015. Musk does not currently own a stake in the company.

According to sources, the new features will be introduced at OpenAI’s first developer conference in San Francisco on November 6. They are designed to encourage companies to use OpenAI’s technology to build AI-based chatbots and autonomous agents that can perform tasks without human intervention, said the sources, who asked not to be named to discuss the company’s private plans.

OpenAI declined to comment.

The company burst onto the scene last November when it launched ChatGPT, attracting hundreds of millions of people to try a chatbot that responded to questions and commands in a human-like manner, making it one of the world’s fastest-growing consumer apps.

OpenAI has high hopes for sales growth. As Reuters first reported last December, OpenAI executives are expected to end this year with $200 million in revenue and $1 billion by 2024.

Recently, the company has faced challenges in courting outsiders to build businesses using its technology. Making OpenAI indispensable for other companies building applications is one of Altman’s most important strategic goals.

He has met with developers and expressed his desire to build a new ecosystem based on OpenAI’s models, which has now swelled to a myriad of apps, from DoorDash to the writing assistant to Jasper.

Designed by the so-called The release of the stateful API (Application Program Interface) makes it more affordable for companies to create applications by remembering the conversation history of queries. This can greatly reduce the usage that developers have to pay for. Currently, processing a single-page document using GPT-4 can cost 10 cents depending on the length and complexity of the input and output, according to pricing on OpenAI’s website.

Another update, the vision API, would allow people to build software that can analyze images, weeks after the feature became available to ChatGPT users. Giving this tool to developers is also an important step in implementing OpenAI’s so-called multimodal capabilities, which process and create different types of media in addition to text, such as images, audio, and video.

DISCLOSURE OF DEVELOPERS

These releases are designed to attract more developers to pay for access to OpenAI’s model so they can build their own AI software for a variety of uses, such as writing assistants or customer service bots.

Investors have poured more than $20 billion into AI startups this year, many of which rely on OpenAI or other founding company technology, according to PitchBook data.

However, investors are concerned about these startups’ dependence on companies like OpenAI or Google, as this could make them vulnerable to being copied by competitors or larger companies themselves through product updates.

At the same time, startups are also trying to diversify the models they use, experimenting with OpenAI competitors and open source alternatives like Meta’s Llama. That’s why it’s important for OpenAI to differentiate itself from deep-pocketed competitors like Google.

Those sources told Reuters that keeping developers happy has been OpenAI’s main goal. While ChatGPT has been a wild success among consumers, OpenAI’s quest to win over other companies has not been as smooth.

Earlier this year, the company rushed to release ChatGPT plugins, additional tools that allow developers to build apps on ChatGPT. OpenAI hoped the plug-ins would match Apple’s iOS App Store and gain an edge over competing chatbots such as Google’s Bard.

Developers, whose plugins are among the top 30 or so categories, described initial hype, followed by a sharp decline in interest. The popular Scholar AI plugin had around 7,000 daily users at the end of August, according to its developer Lakshya Bakshi. ChatGPT attracts around 180 million active users every month.

Altman has publicly acknowledged that there is more work to be done. Earlier this year, Altman admitted to a London-based developer group that add-ons have not caught on in the market.