ChatGPT 4o's image-generation capabilities have been the talk of the town over the last week or so, but it looks like free users might get hit with a downgrade very soon.

OpenAI is currently testing watermarks in a new version of the ChatGPT Android app and it looks like free users are going to be the ones to suffer.

Shared by @btibor91 on X, code in version 1.2025.0912509108 beta references "image-gen-watermark-for-free", hinting at upcoming watermarking presumably for users on the ChatGPT free plan.

This watermark implementation comes off the back of ChatGPT server overload following the release of 4o's impressive image-generation capabilities and the viral use of the platform to create Studio Ghibli-esque imagery.

Up until this point, the Studio Ghibli-style images have had no watermarking, causing huge concern among creatives as the ethics of AI image generation has once again been called into question.

Now it looks like you'll need to pay for ChatGPT Plus, which costs $20 / roughly £16 a month, in order to get full access to 4o's image-generation tool without watermarks and without a minuscule 3-a-day limit.

Not confirmed, but likely

While it's possible that OpenAI is just testing watermark capabilities in the beta release of the ChatGPT Android app, this implementation is likely to occur sooner rather than later.

There has been significant backlash following the viral trend of anime images that resemble Studio Ghibli, and this looks to be the first step in addressing those copyright concerns.

While ChatGPT Plus is already a compelling value proposition for those who use AI frequently, including a watermark on images generated by free users could see an increase in paid subscriptions.

That said, we don't know what these watermarks look like as of yet, and depending on how large they are it could be a positive step in regulating AI-generated images on social media.