The company announced the changes on Monday, making AI Plus the lowest-priced paid AI subscription offered by a provider in the US market.

Vikas Kansal, product lead for Gemini AI subscriptions, said on X that the storage upgrade would reach users over the next few days.

Google AI Plus was introduced in January as an entry-level paid plan aimed at individual users and students. The service includes access to Gemini with higher usage limits, Omni Flash video generation, Google Flow creative tools, NotebookLM and AI-powered features in Gmail.

In Nigeria, alongside AI Plus at N7,700, Google still offers higher-priced plans. Google AI Pro costs N28,500 per month and includes 5TB of storage, expanded Gemini access and the company’s Pro model.

Google AI Ultra starts at N89,000 per month, offers at least 20TB of storage and provides significantly higher usage limits, as well as early access to new features.

The current price reduction follows a series of changes to Google’s AI subscription business this year. In April, the company increased storage on its AI Pro plan to 5TB without raising prices. A month later, it launched a new AI Ultra package and reduced the cost of its top-tier subscription from $250 to $200 per month.

With competition increasing among AI providers over subscription pricing, and premium plans taking over the market, companies have now started introducing cheaper options to attract more users.

This first became visible in India, one of the world’s fastest-growing AI markets. OpenAI launched ChatGPT Go there in August 2025 at about $4.60 per month, well below the price of its standard ChatGPT Plus subscription. Google followed with its own sub-$5 AI Plus offering in India later that year.

Google’s latest decision brings that pricing strategy to the United States, where subscription costs have so far played a smaller role in competition between major AI companies.

The development could increase pressure on competitors, particularly Anthropic, which has not introduced a lower-cost subscription tier or localised pricing in key international markets.

OpenAI and Anthropic are both preparing for public listings after filing confidential IPO paperwork, and growing price competition could become an important issue for investors assessing the long-term profitability of AI businesses.

Speaking at a conference hosted by Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney on Tuesday, Sam Altman said he expected entry-level office jobs to disappear much faster after the launch of ChatGPT in 2022.

Instead, he said the reality has been different because many jobs still depend heavily on human interaction.

“I’m delighted to be wrong about this,” Altman said during a discussion with CBA chief executive Matt Comyn. “I thought there would have been more impact on entry-level white-collar jobs being eliminated by now than has actually happened.”

Altman added that he now understands why the disruption has been slower than expected.

“I now think I understand more about why it hasn’t, and I’m obviously grateful but that is an area where my intuitions were just off,” he said.

The OpenAI boss explained that while AI tools can handle technical tasks, many people still prefer dealing with humans directly. He said he once experimented with using AI to reply to Slack and email messages but later returned to answering some personally.

“We really do care about people,” Altman said. “We really do care about our interactions with people.”

That experience, he said, changed how he thinks about the future of work and the role AI will play inside companies.

“I don’t think we’re going to have the kind of jobs apocalypse that some of the companies in our space advocate or talk about,” he said.

Even so, several large companies have already linked job cuts and restructuring to AI adoption. Firms including HSBC, Amazon, Standard Chartered and Commonwealth Bank of Australia have said automation and AI tools are changing staffing needs in some departments.

Matt Comyn said AI would likely lead to smaller teams in some parts of the economy, although workers may also progress faster as technology handles routine tasks.

CBA has been investing heavily in AI and staff training as banks prepare for wider adoption of the technology. According to the bank, it plans to spend about A$90 million on reskilling programmes while annual technology investment has reached A$2.4 billion.

Altman also said AI technology is advancing faster than many businesses and institutions can absorb. While AI tools have improved rapidly, he believes enterprise adoption is still at an early stage.

He said OpenAI had been “roughly right” about the pace of technological development but “pretty wrong” about the social and economic consequences.

The remarks come as OpenAI prepares for a possible stock market listing in the United States. Reuters reported last week that the company plans to confidentially file for an initial public offering in the coming weeks.

The report said OpenAI could seek a valuation of about $1 trillion and raise at least $60 billion, which would place it among the world’s most valuable technology companies.

Murati’s recorded testimony was played on Wednesday in Oakland, California, during Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI.

Musk accuses the company of abandoning the nonprofit mission it started with and turning into a profit-driven business tied to Microsoft.

Speaking about Altman’s leadership, Murati said: “My concern was about Sam saying one thing to one person and completely the opposite to another person.” 

She added that he was “creating chaos” inside the company and, at times, was deceptive with her and other executives.

The testimony focused heavily on the leadership situation that shook OpenAI in November 2023. At the time, the board removed Sam Altman as chief executive before bringing him back just days later, while Mira Murati briefly served as interim CEO during that period.

She told the court she still wanted Altman to remain chief executive, although she pressed board members for clearer reasons behind the decision to remove him. At the same time, she warned that the company faced serious internal problems.

“OpenAI was at catastrophic risk of falling apart,” Murati said. “I was concerned about the company completely blowing up.”

Murati later left OpenAI in 2024 and went on to co-found Thinking Machines Lab.

Another former OpenAI board member, Shivon Zilis, also gave evidence in the case. Zilis said the board had “extreme concern” about the release of ChatGPT without proper communication with directors.

Asked whether concerns about Altman had been raised internally, Zilis replied: “There had been a couple of instances.”

Zilis now works at Elon Musk’s Neuralink and is also the mother of four of Musk’s children.

The lawsuit, filed by Musk in 2024, argues that OpenAI moved away from its original charitable purpose after receiving billions of dollars from Microsoft. Musk claims the company effectively became tied to Microsoft’s commercial interests instead of serving the public good.

Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019 and supplies the computing power behind products such as ChatGPT and Copilot through its Azure cloud platform.

Musk is seeking $150 billion in damages and wants the money directed to OpenAI’s charitable arm. He is also pushing for Altman’s removal and wants the company’s for-profit structure dissolved.

Court proceedings have also revealed challenges between OpenAI’s founders and executives over control of the company, its rapid growth and the race to develop artificial general intelligence, often called AGI.

Some witnesses told the court that the company reaching AGI first could gain enormous economic and political influence worldwide.

The case also reveals Musk’s competition with OpenAI. His own artificial intelligence company, xAI, has expanded rapidly and merged with SpaceX in 2026 in a deal that reportedly valued the combined business at about $250 billion.

During the trial, it also emerged that Musk tried to settle with OpenAI president Greg Brockman shortly before proceedings began. According to testimony, Musk warned that Altman and Brockman could become “the most hated men in America.”

Before now, Microsoft helped fund OpenAI’s rapid growth and used early access to its systems to build new tools across Windows, Office, Azure and other products.

Under the new agreement, Microsoft will remain OpenAI’s main cloud partner, but it will no longer have sole rights to host or distribute OpenAI technology.

That means OpenAI can now reach customers already using other cloud providers, instead of asking them to move to Microsoft Azure first.

Even so, OpenAI products are still expected to launch first on Azure unless Microsoft cannot, or chooses not to, support them.

Microsoft will also keep a non-exclusive licence to OpenAI’s intellectual property until 2032.

Another key change concerns money as Microsoft will no longer pay OpenAI a share of revenue from its own AI-related products. At the same time, OpenAI will continue paying Microsoft a 20% revenue share until 2030, though that amount now has a fixed upper limit.

Following the announcement, Microsoft shares fell about 1% in premarket trading on Monday, while Amazon and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, edged higher.

This means Microsoft has lost a strategic advantage, while its competitors now have a stronger path to offer OpenAI products through their own cloud services.

Still, aside from the exclusive deal, Microsoft is deeply tied to OpenAI. The software company owns about 27% of OpenAI, a stake estimated to be worth around $225 billion after OpenAI’s corporate restructuring last year.

The two companies have faced limitations in recent months, with reports in March saying Microsoft had considered going to court over a proposed $50 billion cloud deal involving Amazon and OpenAI that could have conflicted with earlier exclusivity terms.

There were also signs of stress inside OpenAI. Internal discussions reportedly revealed frustration that the old arrangement limited sales opportunities, especially among companies already committed to AWS or Google Cloud.

For OpenAI, the new structure provides room to expand faster and sell across more platforms.

For Microsoft, the deal removes exclusivity but secures long-term access to OpenAI technology while putting clearer limits on future payments.

For customers, it means more choice and less pressure to rely on a single cloud provider.

Marill, joining from Airbnb, where he held a similar leadership role, will oversee operations across the region and will be based in Paris.

The appointment gives OpenAI a senior executive focused solely on a region where demand for its products is increasing, but where political and business issues about dependence on American technology are also growing.

Emmanuel Marill will report to Jason Kwon, chief strategy officer at OpenAI.

“As demand for ChatGPT and Codex continues to grow rapidly all over the world, we are investing significantly in our international leadership and operations,” Kwon said in a statement.

OpenAI has been aiming to win more paying business customers as it faces the high cost of developing new artificial intelligence systems. Europe is an important market, although some officials and company leaders have urged stronger support for home-grown technology firms.

French startup Mistral AI has positioned itself as a European alternative to major US companies such as OpenAI.

At the same time, OpenAI is still reviewing parts of its infrastructure plans in the region. Earlier this month, the company paused its Stargate data centre project in the United Kingdom, citing regulation and energy costs.

Microsoft, one of OpenAI’s biggest backers, later agreed to rent data centre capacity in Norway that had originally been linked to the project. OpenAI said it is still exploring a separate computing agreement there.

Marill will also lead the company’s efforts in the Middle East, where OpenAI has invested heavily, especially in the United Arab Emirates.

Its partner in the country, G42, recently said plans for a large data centre project is still on track despite tensions linked to the US conflict with Iran.

OpenAI has also signed agreements with businesses in banking, pharmaceuticals and media across Europe. It has worked with governments in Germany, Greece and Ireland, while also planning to increase staff numbers in London.

The company said in February that business subscriptions across Europe, the Middle East and Africa had grown sevenfold over the previous year, though it did not disclose revenue for the region.

Globally, Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has said OpenAI’s annualised revenue exceeded $20 billion last year.

The company behind ChatGPT will first invest $500 million in the venture, known internally as DeployCo, with the new business expected to reach a $10 billion valuation in a funding round due to close in early May.

DeployCo has been set up as a Delaware-listed limited liability company. Its main role will be to speed up the use of OpenAI’s workplace products as the company launches harder into the business market.

Financial Times reported that OpenAI will hold super-voting shares in the venture, giving it stronger control over key decisions.

The report also noted that OpenAI has the option to invest another $1 billion later. At the same time, investors including TPG, Bain Capital, Advent International, Brookfield and Goanna Capital are expected to provide a further $4 billion.

Private equity backers are said to be investing for five years, with OpenAI guaranteeing them an annual return of 17.5%.

If completed, the deal would rank among the biggest partnerships between an artificial intelligence company and private equity investors.

OpenAI has recently increased its focus on corporate customers. It is looking to grow products such as ChatGPT Enterprise and other workplace tools beyond its consumer business.

That effort comes as competition increases in the business market. Anthropic, maker of Claude, is widely seen as having gained stronger traction with corporate clients. The company has also benefited from partnerships with Amazon and Google Cloud.

Microsoft is another major competitor through its deep ties with OpenAI and the integration of OpenAI models into Microsoft 365 and Azure. Google is also expanding its Gemini products for enterprise users.

Private equity firms are valuable partners because many of them own or influence large companies and can impact software spending decisions across their portfolios.

Reuters said it could not immediately verify the Financial Times report. OpenAI, TPG, Bain Capital, Advent International, Brookfield and Goanna Capital did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The proposed joint venture could help OpenAI open a new revenue stream outside ChatGPT subscriptions, while expanding artificial intelligence tools across sectors such as finance, healthcare and manufacturing.

The company said the new plan sits between the existing $20 Plus subscription and the higher $200 Pro tier. It is designed for users who need more capacity during longer coding sessions.

“We’re introducing a new $100/month Pro tier. This new tier offers 5x more Codex usage than Plus and is best for longer, high-effort Codex sessions.”

With this change, OpenAI’s pricing in Nigeria now spans from a free plan with limited access and adverts, to a Go plan at about ₦7,000 per month, a ₦31,500 Plus plan without adverts, and multiple Pro options starting from about ₦144,900.

The company said the $100 plan includes all existing Pro features. These cover access to its top models, higher usage limits, and full access to tools such as instant responses and deeper reasoning systems.

The main difference across tiers is how much users can do before hitting limits.

For a limited period, OpenAI is increasing usage on the new plan. Subscribers will get up to ten times the Codex capacity of the Plus tier until 31 May. After that, limits are expected to return to standard levels.

OpenAI confirmed that the $200 monthly plan is still available, although it is no longer listed on its pricing page. That higher tier offers up to 20 times the usage of the Plus plan and is aimed at users running demanding tasks across several projects.

The company explained that no plan offers full unlimited access. Instead, each tier is controlled by usage limits, though the highest plan is built to handle continuous work across parallel tasks.

OpenAI is setting the new ChatGPT Pro plan to compete directly with similar offerings from Anthropic, which already runs a $100 subscription for its Claude Code product.

“The new $100 Pro Tier is designed to give developers more practical coding capacity for the money, especially during high-intensity work sessions where limits matter most.

“Compared with Claude Code, Codex delivers more coding capacity per dollar across paid tiers, with the difference showing up most clearly during active coding use,” an OpenAI spokesperson tells TechCrunch.

The development comes as demand for coding tools grows at a speed. OpenAI said more than three million people now use Codex every week. That figure has increased fivefold in the past three months, with usage rising by over 70% month on month.

The company is also expanding its subscription structure. The new tier fills the gap between Plus and the top-end Pro plan, giving developers another option without moving straight to the highest price point.

At the same time, OpenAI is still offering business and enterprise plans with added security, collaboration tools and compliance features for organisations.

Details shared with investors, and reported by Axios, outline a strong growth path. The company expects ad revenue to reach $11 billion in 2027, then $25 billion in 2028, and $53 billion in 2029.

These figures depend on one key assumption where OpenAI believes its products could reach 2.75 billion weekly users by the end of the decade.

Early this year, OpenAI began testing ads in ChatGPT for some users in the United States. The test focused on people using the free tier and the lower-priced Go plan.

Within six weeks, the pilot crossed $100 million in annualised revenue. By March, more than 600 advertisers had signed up.

That early traction gives a clearer picture of where the company is heading. Ad is no longer an experiment but an indispensable part of how OpenAI plans to make more revenue, alongside subscriptions and enterprise deals.

The market is large but crowded. Alphabet reported $294.69 billion in advertising revenue in 2025, while Meta posted $196.18 billion.

OpenAI is trying to take a share of that ad market by using a different advantage, ultimately boosting revenue. In chat-based systems, users usually state exactly what they want, which could make adverts more precise.

Still, there are issues. Some analysts have warned that showing ads inside ChatGPT could affect how people trust the service but OpenAI says it has not seen that so far.

The company reports low dismissal rates and no drop in its trust metrics since the pilot began.

Not everyone is taking the same route. Competitor Anthropic has said its Claude chatbot will remain ad-free, drawing a line between the two approaches.

Meanwhile, advertising is expected to carry a large share of OpenAI’s revenue as it tries to keep up with the high cost of building and running its AI systems.

The company is also strengthening itself as a business that can scale in the same way as the largest internet platforms, with ads being a big part of that plan.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the upgrade will arrive with iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27, expected later this year.

People familiar with the plans said the feature will allow Siri to process multi-step commands in a single query, instead of handling them one at a time.

Right now, Siri responds to one instruction per request. That has left it trailing competitors that can manage more complex tasks in a single interaction. With this change, a user could ask Siri to get directions and share them with a contact in one sentence.

Apple is also working on a comprehensive redesign of Siri. The company is said to be building a more advanced version of the assistant using technology linked to Alphabet Inc.’s Gemini model. Apple has not responded to requests for comment.

The upgrade is expected to feature at the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8, 2026, where Apple usually previews its next software updates.

Beyond handling multiple requests, Apple is testing a new Siri app with both voice and text input. Users may also be able to revisit past conversations, a feature already common with tools like ChatGPT.

There are also plans for an “Extensions” system that would allow third-party services to plug directly into Siri.

At the same time, Apple is looking at opening Siri to other AI providers. Reports say users could choose between different assistants, including those from Anthropic, alongside existing integrations.

This changes the tech giant’s approach. Apple’s earlier Apple Intelligence rollout in 2024 did not gain strong traction, and the company has been under pressure to close the gap with competing systems.

Internally, the project to overhaul Siri into a full chatbot is said to carry the codename “Campos”. The plan is to embed it across the iPhone, iPad and Mac, replacing the current interface with something more interactive and capable.

The lawsuit, filed on March 13, 2026 at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, claims that OpenAI copied close to 100,000 articles from Britannica and its dictionary arm, Merriam-Webster.

According to the complaint, this material was used to train large language models behind ChatGPT.

Britannica says the chatbot can produce responses that are so close to its original entries. It argues that this reduces visits to its own platforms, as users rely on AI-generated summaries instead of going directly to its website.

The company also alleges trademark misuse, stating that its name is sometimes cited in responses in ways that suggest approval where none exists.

In response, OpenAI said its systems are built using publicly available data and operate within the bounds of fair use. A spokesperson said, “Our models empower innovation, and are trained on publicly available data and grounded in fair use.”

Britannica has not publicly expanded on the case since filing. Its representatives did not respond to follow-up questions at the start of the week.

This case adds to other legal disputes involving AI developers and content owners. Over the past year, publishers, authors and artists have challenged how their work is used in training data.

Similar claims have also been brought against other firms, including an ongoing case between Britannica and Perplexity AI, filed in 2025.

Questions including whether using copyrighted material to train AI systems qualify as fair use, have been asked. Technology companies say the process transforms the material into something new, but Publishers disagree, arguing it amounts to copying without consent.