ChatGPT’s Image-Generation Feature gets an Upgrade
ChatGPT can now create and edit images natively.
You know how you had to use DALL-E separately to generate images from OpenAI? Well, that’s old news now. OpenAI has made image generation a native feature inside GPT-4o, and it’s already rolling out to ChatGPT users.
What this means is that you no longer have to rely on OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 text-to-image model. GPT-4o now handles image generation with world knowledge and contextual understanding to generate images. If you need a logo or perhaps a concept sketch, you can just ask, and ChatGPT will get to work.
Alongside ChatGPT’s image-generation improvements, OpenAI also expanded Sora’s capabilities. Sora, initially designed for video generation, now has an integrated image-generation tool, giving it a more versatile creative suite.
This move puts OpenAI in direct competition with Google, which recently added native image generation to Gemini inside AI Studio. But OpenAI seems to have taken its time to get this right. GPT-4o doesn’t just generate images, it can edit existing ones, add details, and even manipulate images with people in them using something called “inpainting.”
Louis Eriakha
Another interesting thing about this rollout is OpenAI’s focus on making image generation practical. They want AI-generated images to be genuinely useful, whether for design, communication, or even things like creating instructional diagrams. GPT-4o can now generate images with embedded text that’s readable—a feature that most AI models struggle with. It also keeps designs consistent across multiple iterations, so if you’re creating a character or brand aesthetic, you won’t end up with a jumbled mess.
To address safety concerns, OpenAI says every image generated with GPT-4o will come with metadata that tags it as AI-created. Strict restrictions are also in place for things like deepfakes, nudity, and graphic content. They’ve even built an internal tool to track whether an image came from their model, which could be useful for catching unauthorized AI-generated content floating around online.
Initially, OpenAI rolled out the new image-generation feature to all ChatGPT users. However, following the high demand, free users like myself have been cut off till whenever we're deemed worthy, I suppose.
