ChatGPT Plus is now available in India for a monthly fee of $20

OpenAI unveiled GPT-4, the next generation of its AI language model on March 14. This technology powers ChatGPT and the new version of Microsoft's Bing search engine. (Image: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg)

OpenAI announced on March 17 that it is bringing ChatGPT Plus, the subscription plan for its viral chatbot ChatGPT, to India as the artificial intelligence research lab looks to ramp up the monetisation of its text-generating conversational product.

Available at a monthly fee of $20, ChatGPT Plus will give subscribers priority access to new features and improvements, faster response times during conversations and access to ChatGPT even during peak demand times.

The Sam Altman-led startup first introduced ChatGPT Plus on a pilot basis for customers in the United States on February 1, 2023.

Users will be able to sign up for this plan through the ChatGPT web app. At the time of writing this article, the service doesn't appear to be localising its prices for different geographies, levying the same fee across the world.

That said, OpenAI had previously mentioned in a blogpost that it is "actively exploring" options for lower-cost plans to broaden the service's availability

This development comes on the heels of the company unveiling the next generation of its AI language model GPT-4 on March 14. This technology powers ChatGPT and the new version of Microsoft's Bing search engine.

The new model is currently available only to ChatGPT Plus subscribers with a usage cap. "We will adjust the exact usage cap depending on demand and system performance in practice, but we expect to be severely capacity constrained" the company said at the launch of GPT-4 on March 14.

Also Read: 5 things to know about GPT-4, OpenAI’s latest language model offering

"Depending on the traffic patterns we see, we may introduce a new subscription level for higher-volume GPT-4 usage; we also hope at some point to offer some amount of free GPT-4 queries so those without a subscription can try it too," it said.

The free version of ChatGPT is currently powered by an older language model GPT-3.5 that is limited to data up until September 2021.

Read: What is ChatGPT-4 and how to use it: All you need to know