In the past few hours, OpenAI published an official announcement on its blog unveiling a new program that will let a group of selected users tap into ChatGPT’s Pro plans for free. It starts with 10,000 selected users this summer, climbing to a threshold of 100,000 by the end of the year.

The program is called “ChatGPT for Academic Researchers” and, as the name suggests, it is aimed at academic researchers. The list includes scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. All professionals coming from academic institutions selected by the company will receive hands-on support from OpenAI, gain access to the GPT-5.6 Sol Pro model, and be able to invite four collaborators from their own institution to take part.

How OpenAI’s program works

OpenAI stated in its announcement that offering free access to its artificial-intelligence tools is part of a commitment of more than $250 million through 2027 to support external research and scientific discovery.

Anyone who already uses an AI model to analyze data and draft funding requests will be able to keep doing so without paying a monthly or annual subscription. In practice, it is a move to “formalize” the collaboration, a logic similar to ChatGPT Edu, the version of ChatGPT for schools that OpenAI makes available to selected academic institutions.

This is not the first time Sam Altman’s company has courted researchers. Last January it launched Prism, an AI-based tool for working with scientific papers and documents. Available to anyone with an active ChatGPT account, it can be used to check elements such as research citations and formatting. The initial demo also included a way to generate lesson plans, a feature especially useful for university professors.

The company’s long-term strategy

OpenAI has already said that researchers’ data will not be used to train its models, though some voices remain skeptical of ChatGPT’s benevolence. Distributing tools for free to research institutions could generate a larger number of scientific discoveries that, in one way or another, involve a GPT model.

But that is not the only angle: by making more scientific fields dependent on the company’s tools, OpenAI could open the door to future revenue from for-profit research. Whatever the company’s ultimate goal, this decision will help provide full support to 100,000 researchers by the end of this year. And, as the announcement states, no data will be collected and then exploited for the advanced training of its models.

Editor’s note

This article was originally published in Italian on money.it by Pasquale Conte on August 08, 2026 as «OpenAI offre ChatGPT Pro gratis ad alcuni utenti selezionati». It has been translated and adapted for an international audience by the Money.it International desk.