ChatGPT’s New Image Generator Is Finally Available To Free Users, Kinda

ChatGPT’s free users can finally access the model’s latest image-generating abilities. There are a few caveats, which we’ll get to, but free users can join in the fun of ripping off other folks’ creative work for their amusement.

After releasing ChatGPT’s new built-in image generation capabilities last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the rollout of the update to the free tier would be delayed because “images in chatgpt are wayyyy more popular than we expected (and we had pretty high expectations).”

“Hey ChatGPT, what is copyright?”

The delay turned out to be just over a week, and now most free-tier ChatGPT users can generate images without having to switch to OpenAI’s DALL-E generator. However, to ‘keep their GPUs from melting,’ Altman said his company would “temporarily” limit image generation for free users to three images a day.

We created an account and found that to be true. “You’ve reached your image creation limit. Upgrade to ChatGPT Plus or try again tomorrow after 12:33 PM,” was the message we received after our third image.

On a related note, if you don’t spend every waking minute online, you might still be confused about all the generic-looking, supposedly hand-drawn images cropping up. Those are thanks to this update and everyone wanting to turn themselves into a lookalike from Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli films.

Even if we ignore the fact that the ‘Ghibli-style’ images ChatGPT spits out can’t hold a candle to the real thing, the trend has again brought up concerns regarding the use of copyrighted material in training data sets. Miyazaki famously made his thoughts on AI-generated art known years ago. We doubt his feelings will have changed much.

Since this utter garbage is trending, we should take a look at what Hayao Miyazaki, the founder of Studio Ghibli, said about machine-created art. https://t.co/1TMPcFGIJE pic.twitter.com/IvaM9WZL3T

— Nuberodesign (@nuberodesign) March 26, 2025