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(Aug 6): OpenAI is providing access to its ChatGPT product to US federal agencies at a nominal cost of US$1 (RM4.23) a year as part of a push to get its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot more widely adopted.
The move comes after the General Services Administration (GSA) announced it approved OpenAI, along with Alphabet Inc’s Google and Anthropic, as vendors in its new marketplace allowing federal agencies to buy AI software at scale. OpenAI is offering the enterprise version of its ChatGPT product, which includes enhanced security and privacy features. 
The US government’s central purchasing arm has used its buying power before to negotiate discounts with software providers like Adobe Inc and Salesforce Inc. But the US$1-a-year pricing from OpenAI is the deepest yet, and the first for an AI company, according to a GSA official familiar with the matter. 
The terms of the contracts with Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude haven’t been disclosed.
Besides encouraging more applications of its ChatGPT product — which now has nearly 700 million users a week — OpenAI executives said the government discount would help deliver on the White House’s action plan for federal agencies to integrate new AI tools in their work.
“The focus of this effort is not to gain a market advantage over competitors. It is to scale the adoption of artificial intelligence across the federal workforce,” said Joe Larson, vice president of government at OpenAI, said in an interview. “The private sector is embracing AI. We don’t believe the government should be left behind.”  
OpenAI is also encouraging government workers to use its tools by creating a dedicated government user community, tailoring its training courses and partnering with consultants from Slalom and Boston Consulting Group.
The AI startup said it won’t use data from federal workers to train or improve its models. Larson also said that government agencies won’t be required to renew their contracts. 
Josh Gruenbaum, the commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, said the AI industry is dynamic enough that he’s not concerned that OpenAI’s pricing would help it get a stranglehold on government contracts. After a year, market pricing will dictate contract terms, he said.
“These technologies are changing and evolving at breakneck speed. We don’t want to commit ourselves. This is almost like it’s a trial run in some ways,” said Gruenbaum, who oversees more than US$490 billion of goods and services purchased by civilian federal agencies annually. “We’re trying to move quickly, and we think that this helps us move quickly on this first leg of the race.”
OpenAI’s US$1 deal announced on Wednesday doesn’t apply to its API product used to build custom software on top of OpenAI’s models, only its ChatGPT chatbot, according to Gruenbaum.
OpenAI’s technology has already been used by some 90,000 public sector workers at federal, state, and local agencies since 2024, according to the company’s website. 
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