OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Addresses Capacity Issues and Product Delays

On Monday, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, shared insights on X regarding the unexpected popularity of the company's new image-generation tool integrated into ChatGPT. This surge in demand has led to unspecified delays in product releases.

Altman mentioned, “We are getting things under control, but you should expect new releases from OpenAI to be delayed, stuff to break, and for service to sometimes be slow as we deal with capacity challenges,” emphasizing that the team is working hard to improve the situation.

The launch of ChatGPT's image generation feature was met with exceptional enthusiasm, partly due to its ability to mimic unique artistic styles, such as those of Studio Ghibli's animations. However, the rapid uptake has created challenges for the OpenAI team. Altman noted that since the launch, the company “hasn’t been able to catch up,” revealing that staff have been putting in late nights and weekend hours to maintain service reliability.

On Monday, Altman reported that the platform saw a remarkable addition of one million users in just one hour, bringing the total to 500 million weekly users and 20 million paying subscribers. This marks a significant increase from the previous year, which had approximately 300 million users and 15.5 million subscribers at the end of 2024.

To alleviate some of the workload, OpenAI had to delay the rollout of the image generation feature for free ChatGPT users and temporarily suspend video generation capabilities for new users of Sora, the company’s generative AI media toolkit.

OpenAI remains committed to enhancing its systems and improving overall service delivery amid these unanticipated challenges.

OpenAI, product, Altman