OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT Projects to free users

OpenAI has announced that it's making its Projects feature available to free users of ChatGPT. Projects let you organize chats with the company's AI assistant around a specific subject, and were previously one of several privileges only enjoyed by paid subscribers.

While on some level Projects are glorified folders for ChatGPT conversations, the ability to set custom instructions for how the AI responds or limit what information and files it can reference, makes the feature a useful option for power users. As part of this rollout, OpenAI is also increasing the number of files that can be added to a project for ChatGPT to reference. Free users can upload five, Plus subscribers can upload 25 and Pro subscribers can upload 40. Whether you pay for ChatGPT or not, you'll also be able to customize the color and icon for your project, too.

OpenAI has made a habit of slowly trickling down paid features to its free users over the last few years. Things like Deep Research and ChatGPT Voice started off as exclusives for the company's subscribers before becoming available to everyone. Offering a formerly premium feature with limits is itself a way to get free customers to become paid ones. OpenAI's decision to make the recently released GPT-5 model available to everyone at launch, but with harsher limits on how many times free users can use it follows a similar logic.

Projects are available for free users on the web and in the ChatGPT app for Android. OpenAI says the iOS ChatGPT app will receive the feature "over the coming days."

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