OpenAI just upgraded memory for ChatGPT – here's everything you need to know

So here's the original post on X that started the train of something new from OpenAI today.

Now just after 1PM ET as we predicted, Sam Altman has announced that OpenAI has "greatly improved memory in chatgpt"

The major change here, as Altman describes it, is that ChatGPT can now refer back to previous conversations you've had with the AI assistant. Of course, this will be an opt-in feature and plays into the idea – and quest from AI makers – that AI should know a lot about you and ultimately be personalized to your needs.

OpenAI is also wasting no time. ChatGPT's improved memory function is now rolling out for Pro Users in select countries, excluding the UK, EEA, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. It will eventually arrive for Plus subscribers, but there is no word on when this will hit free users.

Now, we're eager to try out this new memory function, but my colleague Lance Ulanoff – TechRadar's Editor-at-Large – ChatGPT Plus account, doesn't yet have the memory function or know that it's a new feature.

However, this improvement could prove quite useful for reviewing conversations you've had with ChatGPT without having to manually scroll through all of them.

In a series of announcement posts on X (formerly Twitter), Altman showed that he views this feature drop as a pretty major one.

Writing, "this is a surprisingly great feature imo, and it points at something we are excited about: ai systems that get to know you over your life, and become extremely useful and personalized."

Clearly, the team at OpenAI views this as a big step forward and, ultimately, a push toward making the AI assistant and chatbot even more useful. It also hints at the future for OpenAI as a focus is letting these AI systems really get to know whomever it's conversing with. That could hint at future AI agents, much more advanced large-language models, and that rumored piece of hardware.

While ChatGPT Pro subscribers have access to the improved memory right now, those with a ChatGPT Plus plan should get access soon.

Sam Altman is shedding a bit more light in a reply, noting it should be in the next few days.

You will be able to opt-out

If the idea of an AI chatbot remembering everything you say doesn't interest you, OpenAI has programmed two ways to circumvent this within ChatGPT.

You can either opt out of memory entirely or use a new feature called temporary conversations. This will allow you to start a fresh conversation that won't recall or impact memory.

That might be the best approach, especially if you're mostly on board with Sam Altman's view that AI systems should get to know you.

We also have our first official look at how this improved memory in ChatGPT will function, thanks to a teaser posted on the @OpenAI X account.

In it, we can see that when you ask, "what we talked about this weekend," it will summarize the topics discussed into bullet points broken out by day. Plus, you can then follow up, as you would with any old ChatGPT conversation, allowing you to ask if what you've discussed matches what you've discussed at any point in its memorized history.

You'll know once your account has been upgraded with the smarter memory via this splash screen.

Again, it's rolling out now for Pro users, and Plus subscribers will get it soon after. It's also confirmed that those with ChatGPT Team, Enterprise, or Education accounts will get the functionality in a few weeks.

Memory is not entirely new to ChatGPT

It's worth pointing out that ChatGPT could already recall, and the AI assistant has had a memory for a bit.

Today's upgrades are exactly that: an upgrade to the existing memory, now being labeled as 'new, improved memory' by ChatGPT.

The idea is that when you ask ChatGPT for something, it can look back and reference past conversations to deliver more accurate and helpful answers to whatever your query might be. It's sort of building a Rolodex about everything you've chatted about with it to help better assist and answer any given request.

The AI can pick up on trends on its own, but you can also directly ask ChatGPT to remember something as you converse with it via typed text or when you're actually speaking in voice mode.

While ChatGPT has been running just fine in the nearly two hours since the improved memory feature was announced, the service hasn't been without its outages in the past few weeks. Notably, the load of generating images has caused some issues, including the melting of GPUs.

Sam Altman posted to X, noting that 'usage has gone nuts over the past month' for OpenAI but that the team has been able to pull together more resources. How? Well, he simply asked the internet.

He promised that rate limits and the speed of ChatGPT would continue to improve, as well.