ChatGPT Image Generation Upgraded

In a livestream on Tuesday, OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, revealed a significant enhancement to ChatGPT's image-generation capabilities, marking the first major update in over a year. Now, ChatGPT can harness the power of the GPT-4o model to create and modify images and photos directly. Although GPT-4o has been the backbone of the AI chatbot platform for some time, its abilities were previously limited to text generation and editing.
Altman announced that the native image generation feature powered by GPT-4o is now available for subscribers of OpenAI's $200-a-month Pro plan, both in ChatGPT and Sora, the company's AI video-generation tool. OpenAI plans to extend this feature to Plus and free users of ChatGPT soon, as well as to developers using its API service.
Compared to the DALL-E 3 model it replaces, GPT-4o takes a bit more time to generate images but produces results that are more accurate and detailed. Additionally, GPT-4o can edit existing images, including those with people, allowing for transformations and detailed "inpainting" of foreground and background elements.
To develop this new image feature, OpenAI utilized "publicly available data" along with proprietary data from partnerships with companies like Shutterstock, as reported to the Wall Street Journal. The specifics of training data are often kept under wraps by AI companies due to competitive advantages and the risk of IP-related lawsuits.
Brad Lightcap, OpenAI's chief operating officer, emphasized the company's commitment to respecting artists' rights. "We’re respectful of the artists’ rights in terms of how we do the output, and we have policies in place that prevent us from generating images that directly mimic any living artists’ work," he stated to the Journal. OpenAI also provides an opt-out form for creators to request the removal of their works from its training datasets and respects requests to prevent its web-scraping bots from collecting data, including images, from websites.
This upgrade to ChatGPT's image-generation capabilities comes shortly after Google introduced experimental native image output for its Gemini 2.0 Flash model. However, Google's feature quickly drew attention on social media, not always positively, as it lacked sufficient guardrails, allowing users to remove watermarks and generate images of copyrighted characters.
*This article was updated at 12pm PT to include OpenAI’s statement to the Wall Street Journal regarding GPT-4o’s training data.*
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Comments (52)
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StevenAdams
August 22, 2025 at 3:01:18 AM EDT
Wow, ChatGPT's image upgrade with GPT-4o sounds wild! Can't wait to mess around with creating some crazy visuals. 😎
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GregoryWalker
July 27, 2025 at 9:19:05 PM EDT
Wow, ChatGPT's image upgrade with GPT-4o sounds wild! Creating and tweaking photos directly? That's some next-level tech. Curious how it stacks up against Midjourney now. 😎
0
StephenGreen
April 18, 2025 at 9:59:40 PM EDT
ChatGPTの画像生成機能がアップデートされて、本当に驚きました!使ってみると、生成される画像のクオリティがすごいです。まるで小型のPhotoshopを持っているみたい。ただ、生成に時間がかかるのが唯一の欠点ですね。それでも、大きな進歩ですね!😲
0
BillyEvans
April 17, 2025 at 11:19:05 PM EDT
¡La nueva función de generación de imágenes de ChatGPT es alucinante! He estado jugando con ella y la calidad de las imágenes es simplemente irreal. Es como tener un mini Photoshop a mi alcance. La única desventaja es que a veces tarda un poco en generar. Aún así, un gran paso adelante! 🤯
0
JasonRamirez
April 17, 2025 at 4:56:00 AM EDT
The new image generation feature in ChatGPT is mind-blowing! I've been playing around with it and the quality of the images is just unreal. It's like having a mini Photoshop at my fingertips. The only downside is that sometimes it takes a bit too long to generate. Still, a huge step up! 🤯
0
RogerLee
April 16, 2025 at 10:48:55 PM EDT
The new image generation feature in ChatGPT is mind-blowing! I tried it out and the images are so realistic, it's like magic! Only downside is it can be slow sometimes, but totally worth it. Can't wait to see what else they come up with! 🚀
0


Wow, ChatGPT's image upgrade with GPT-4o sounds wild! Can't wait to mess around with creating some crazy visuals. 😎




Wow, ChatGPT's image upgrade with GPT-4o sounds wild! Creating and tweaking photos directly? That's some next-level tech. Curious how it stacks up against Midjourney now. 😎




ChatGPTの画像生成機能がアップデートされて、本当に驚きました!使ってみると、生成される画像のクオリティがすごいです。まるで小型のPhotoshopを持っているみたい。ただ、生成に時間がかかるのが唯一の欠点ですね。それでも、大きな進歩ですね!😲




¡La nueva función de generación de imágenes de ChatGPT es alucinante! He estado jugando con ella y la calidad de las imágenes es simplemente irreal. Es como tener un mini Photoshop a mi alcance. La única desventaja es que a veces tarda un poco en generar. Aún así, un gran paso adelante! 🤯




The new image generation feature in ChatGPT is mind-blowing! I've been playing around with it and the quality of the images is just unreal. It's like having a mini Photoshop at my fingertips. The only downside is that sometimes it takes a bit too long to generate. Still, a huge step up! 🤯




The new image generation feature in ChatGPT is mind-blowing! I tried it out and the images are so realistic, it's like magic! Only downside is it can be slow sometimes, but totally worth it. Can't wait to see what else they come up with! 🚀












