OpenAI is currently facing financial challenges, with its CEO, Sam Altman, revealing that the $200 ChatGPT Pro monthly plan is operating at a loss due to subscriber overuse. Altman admitted to personally setting the price, expecting it to generate more returns. Launched late last year, ChatGPT Pro offers access to an upgraded 'o1' reasoning AI model and lifts rate limits on other tools, including the Sora video generator.

Despite having raised approximately $20 billion since its inception, OpenAI has yet to achieve profitability. The company projected losses of about $5 billion against $3.7 billion in revenue for 2024. High operating costs, encompassing staffing, AI training infrastructure, and office rent, are significantly impacting the company's revenue, with ChatGPT reportedly costing OpenAI an estimated $700,000 per day at one point.

In response to its substantial capital requirements—more than initially anticipated—OpenAI is preparing for a corporate restructuring to attract new investors. Optimistically, the company projects its revenue to reach $100 billion by 2029, a figure comparable to Nestlé's current annual sales. This financial strategy might necessitate an increase in the pricing of its various subscription tiers.

Further developments include the introduction of advanced subscription options in December. The ChatGPT Pro tier, priced at $200 (N150,000) a month, was announced to provide unlimited access to OpenAI's most powerful AI designs and an upgraded model capable of human-like reasoning tasks. Additionally, OpenAI offers a ChatGPT Plus subscription at $20 (N15,000) a month, a tenth of the Pro option's cost. These releases coincided with OpenAI's efforts to secure billions in funding and address heightened competition in the AI industry, as companies like Google and Anthropic also strive to develop sophisticated AI systems and convince customers to subscribe to offset high development costs.

Also in December, during its 12 days of product events, OpenAI unveiled Sora Turbo, a new version of its text-to-video generation model. Nearly ten months after the initial Sora preview, this updated model became available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro users via a dedicated website, Sora.com. Sora Turbo can generate videos up to 20 seconds long at 1080p resolution from a text or image prompt. OpenAI stated that Sora Turbo is significantly faster than the previously previewed model.

The company outlined specific access limitations for Sora Turbo. ChatGPT Plus subscribers, paying $20 monthly, are limited to generating 50 videos per month. In contrast, ChatGPT Pro subscribers, paying $200 monthly, receive unlimited access to