OpenAI said on the 6th (local time) that it will offer unlimited text chats to ChatGPT free users. Until now, ChatGPT free users were restricted after a certain number of chats, but the company decided to remove that usage cap.
That day, OpenAI announced that the latest lightweight artificial intelligence (AI) model "GPT-5.6 Sol Luna" will be provided as the default model for ChatGPT free and the low-cost "Go" plan starting this week. Starting next week, free users will also get unlimited text chats. A "think" button, which can be used for complex questions that require reasoning, will also be added.
However, safeguards to prevent abuse will also be applied. Image generation, file uploads, and attachment analysis will remain subject to usage limits as before.
For ChatGPT "Plus" and "Pro" users, whose monthly fee is at least 30,000 won, a new feature called the "thinking slider" will allow them to adjust how much the model "thinks" when generating answers. Users can directly control the level of reasoning based on the complexity of the question and the steps needed to solve the problem.
In the industry, the view is that OpenAI removed the text chat cap to cement ChatGPT's lead in the consumer AI chatbot market. According to OpenAI, 1 billion people use ChatGPT every week. By offering unlimited text chats, free users may turn to ChatGPT more often for everyday tasks such as search, potentially increasing time spent and usage frequency.
OpenAI also described the policy change as "a measure to make the latest model available to more people and to allow free users to continue text conversations without usage limits."