OpenAI will allow people to query ChatGPT without first creating an account, the company announced Monday.

Why it matters: The move makes it easier for people to access ChatGPT and has potential privacy benefits, but could also complicate OpenAI's efforts to fight abuse of its systems.

• OpenAI says it's rolling out the new capability gradually, starting Monday.
• By default, queries made while logged out will be used to train OpenAI's models, but there is an option to turn this off, even for those who choose not to sign up with OpenAI.
• OpenAI noted the benefits of creating an account, including the ability to save your history, share chats and create custom instructions.

Between the lines: To help mitigate the added risk, OpenAI said it will block prompts and results for a broader range of queries.

• A company representative told Axios that OpenAI worked with internal teams dedicated to detecting and preventing abuse and carefully considered the ways that bad actors could misuse a logged-out experience.
• The representative also acknowledged that additional changes may be needed.

Go deeper: Axios Explains: How to use ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini AI tools