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Ready to sign up for ChatGPT Plus? Join the club (er, waitlist)

OpenAI just had to bring back the waitlist for ChatGPT Plus subscriptions. Here's why.
Written by Maria Diaz, Staff Writer
ChatGPT Plus waitlist

Instead of signing up for ChatGPT Plus, users can sign up for a waitlist to be notified when subscriptions reopen.

Maria Diaz/ZDNET

OpenAI is pausing the ability for users to sign up for new ChatGPT Plus subscriptions after a sudden surge in demand in recent days. Anyone looking to sign up for a new ChatGPT Plus subscription has to sign up for a waitlist and wait to be notified when subscriptions reopen. 

"The surge in usage post DevDay has exceeded our capacity and we want to make sure everyone has a great experience," Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO posted on X, formerly Twitter. 

Also: I used this famous photographer's AI bot to critique my photo, and the results were wild

OpenAI held its first developers' conference earlier this month, almost a year since the launch of ChatGPT. During DevDay, Sam Altman announced new features for the AI chatbot, particularly when used within the ChatGPT Plus subscription. 

During DevDay, OpenAI announced the ability to create custom bots through GPT-4, capable of being trained on specific data to perform personalized tasks. ChatGPT will also get a boost through GPT-4 Turbo, a more powerful version of its model and one with double the amount of context, at 128k. 

Also: OpenAI aiming to create AI as smart as humans, helped by funds from Microsoft

The new features have gained a lot of attention from existing and new users, particularly the ability to create custom GPTs. The custom GPTs are plentiful and varied, including one from Canva, some for therapy like TherapistGPT,  Tweet enhancers for Xbook creatorsSEO, ones to critique photosQR code creators, and even some to create birthday cakes

Additionally, users can now use the multimodal GPT-4 with web browsing capability, image generation through DALL-E 3, and Advanced Data Analysis without having to switch between each feature. 

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