OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman has called on users to slow down on the ChatGPT’s Ghibli-style pictures, as it is now straining his team.

The update has created a frenzy of the Ghibli-style images flooding the internet forcing the AI startup’s boss to ask users to “chill out” in a post on X platform.

Ghibli images take a toll on the team

OpenAI unlocked a new ability for its ChatGPT – 4o model which allows the model to create more nuanced and on point images, although the chatbot has had the capability to generate pictures from text prompts.

The chatbot used to depend on external models like DALL- E3 for generating images. With the new update, ChatGPT can now generate images through the same large language model (LLM) that answers all the other text queries. According to the Mint, this allows the model to use its own textual knowledge base to understand a user’s request better and generate the images accordingly.

The demand for the service has been overwhelming for the OpenAI team.

“Can yall please chill on generating images, this is insane our team needs sleep.”

Altman.

Altman indicated that the demand for the service was taking a huge toll on the team.

“We just haven’t been able to catch up since launch so people are still working to keep the service up biblical demand, I have never seen anything like that,” said Altman responding to another post on the X platform.

Some enthusiasts suggested relieving the current team and replace it with another that is more agile. But Altman defended his team describing them as “the best team in the world, it’s just hard.”

“No thanks,” he said, adding “in addition to building AGI, this team is on trajectory to build the biggest website in the world from a cold start 2.33 years ago.”

Lots of people need to be awake when load is high?

— Paul Graham (@paulg) March 30, 2025

The OpenAI boss has followed the trend too

Since the launch of the new update to ChatGPT, users flooded social media with posts transformed into pictures that are generated in the style of Studio Ghibli, a trend that Altman himself has got in on.

While Altman feels for his team now, the Mint has indicated that this is not the first time that the AI startup boss has felt overwhelmed and complained about ChatGPT’s native image generation feature putting excessive pressure on OpenAI’s resources.

Earlier, Altman announced limits on image generation even for ChatGPT Plus and Pro users, saying the company’s GPU’s were melting.

OpenAI reportedly started the native image generation update with ChatGPT Plus, Pro and Team users although free users can now enjoy the service too and “Ghiblize” their images.

Following the Studio Ghibli-style trend, ChatGPT is now also capable of creating a host of other images, including comics, posters, presentations and infographics.

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation film studio which was founded by Miyazaki Hayao, Takahata Isao, and Suzuki Toshio in 1985, and is known for its high quality film making with hand-drawn animation and rich storytelling.

It has created several films and some of the notable animated productions include Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Howl’s moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Princess Mononoke.

According to Mint, the studio’s films are celebrated for their dreamlike landscapes, soft color palettes, and deeply human storytelling. In addition to that, the labor-intensive, hand-drawn approach of Ghibli animators has long been considered the gold standard in traditional animation.

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