While developing a feature for an online community, I ran into a problem that made me think there might be an interesting opportunity for OpenAI.
The feature was very simple: a “Meme Generator”. A user writes a prompt, the application adds its own non-overridable safety and context instructions, and the AI generates the image.
Technically, this is easy to build with an API.
Economically, however, there is a problem.
For a small website, community, forum, open-source project or independent application, offering AI features through a traditional API means that the developer or website operator pays for every user’s consumption.
That model doesn’t scale for many small applications.
At the same time, many of those users may already have an AI subscription — or might be perfectly willing to pay for one themselves.
So I wondered: what if OpenAI offered something conceptually similar to:
Sign in with ChatGPT → authorize the third-party application → use your own OpenAI/ChatGPT allowance.
The application would request an AI capability on behalf of the authenticated user, but consumption would belong to that user’s account rather than to the developer’s API billing account.
If the user has included/free usage available, they use it.
If they reach their limit, OpenAI handles the upgrade or purchase directly with the user.
The third-party application doesn’t pay for inference, doesn’t resell credits and doesn’t become an intermediary for billing.
This could also become a distribution model for OpenAI.
Thousands of websites and independent applications that cannot afford to subsidize AI usage could integrate OpenAI features and effectively introduce their users to OpenAI.
There could even be an optional referral/revenue-sharing program: if an integration brings a new paying customer to OpenAI, the application developer receives a referral commission.
The Meme Generator is only the use case that made me think about it. The same model could work for image generation, writing assistance, summaries, translations and many other AI-powered features.
Conceptually:
Third-party app → Sign in with OpenAI/ChatGPT → user authorization → user’s own allowance → OpenAI handles limits/upgrades → optional developer referral
Essentially: “Sign in with OpenAI and use your AI subscription” as a platform capability for third-party applications.
I think this could open OpenAI integrations to a large category of websites and applications that simply cannot adopt developer-funded API consumption today.