OpenAI has temporarily suspended new sign-ups for ChatGPT Plus following a significant surge in usage post DevDay, OpenAI chief Sam Altman said. “The surge in usage post DevDay has exceeded our capacity and we want to make sure everyone has a great experience” he posted on X. 

Despite this temporary pause, users can sign up within the app to receive notifications about the reopening of subscriptions. This ensures they stay informed and can promptly access the enhanced features of ChatGPT Plus when availability resumes.

Recently, ChatGPT also experienced periodic outages caused by an unusual surge in traffic, indicating a  possible DDoS attack.

The surge in the demand can be attributed to GPTs. At OpenAI’s first developer conference, DevDay 2023, OpenAI introduced GPTs that allow anyone to easily build their own GPT without the need for coding. As of now, there are over 5,000 GPTs available. 

After releasing GPT-4 Turbo, OpenAI is silently working on developing GPT-5. Sam Altman mentioned that the training process for GPT-5 will necessitate an increased volume of data, as per FT report. Altman explained that this data would be sourced from a blend of publicly accessible datasets on the internet and exclusive datasets from private companies.

While GPT-5 is expected to be more sophisticated than its predecessors, Altman mentioned that predicting the model’s exact new capabilities and skills is a technical challenge. Meanwhile, Sam Altman stated that OpenAI also plans to seek additional financial support from its major investor, Microsoft, to achieve its vision of AGI.