Artificial intelligence (AI) firm OpenAI has launched a pair of initiatives to expand the company’s ChatGPT services to universities and nonprofit organizations. 

The first of the new service avenues is “ChatGPT Edu,” a version of the AI large language model built for universities specifically designed for use by students, faculty, researchers, and in campus operations.

According to OpenAI, the new offering “includes enterprise-level security and controls and is affordable for educational institutions.”

A company blog post laid out several current use cases for ChatGPT at the university level. Institutions cited as using the service included Oxford, Wharton, University of Texas at Austin, Arizona State University, and Columbia University.

Researchers at Columbia, for example, are using ChatGPT to develop intervention strategies to prevent drug overdoses. Meanwhile, an assistant professor at Arizona State has developed a “GPT Buddy” using the service that allows students learning German to practice their language skills in a conversational manner on their own time.

Per the blog post, Kyle Bowen, Deputy CIO at Arizona State University, was bullish on the ChatGPT Edu initiative:

“Integrating OpenAI's technology into our educational and operational frameworks accelerates transformation at ASU. We're collaborating across our community to harness these tools, extending our learnings as a scalable model for other institutions.”

OpenAI also launched an initiative aimed at bringing further tools and support for nonprofits as well as lowered costs for ChatGPT usage.

Nonprofits registering for the service can now access the ChatGPT Team service for a discounted fee of $20 per user per month with a potential 50% discount for “larger nonprofits ready for large-scale deployment.”

Both ChatGPT Edu and ChatGPT for Nonprofits come with access to the latest models, including GPT-4o as well as services and features including image generation, collaborative workspaces, and custom GPTs.

In related news, OpenAI recently made its GPT-4o model available to unpaid users (the free option for using ChatGPT). This gives users in this tier access to search and load custom GPTs, generate images including charts and graphs, upload files, and integrate web responses. Users will still need to subscribe to a paid tier in order to create their own custom GPTs and avoid message limits on the GPT-4o model.