Table of contents
Executive Summary and Introduction
Sema AI Working Paper 01 found a significant ROI (up to 41X over two years) for coders using GenAI tools to develop software faster.
This Working Paper compares OpenAI's ChatGPT license tiers and pricing models. There are four product license tiers: Free, Plus, Team, and Enterprise. Pricing is available here.
The Working Paper is structured as follows:
- Criteria for evaluating any GenAI coding tool
- Comparison of GitHub Copilot’s four tiers
- Recommendations to choose a license
Sema recommends the Enterprise tier for all organizational use. The added features, controls, and IP indemnification are worth the additional cost.
1. Criteria for Evaluating Any GenAI Coding Tool
When evaluating GenAI coding tools, engineering leaders should consider:
- Organization Size and Structure: Key factors include the size of your development team, collaboration requirements, and the overall structure of your organization.
Security and Compliance: Ensure appropriate, industry-specific protocols are in place based on your organization’s security requirements and compliance obligations. Consultation with security, legal, and regulatory affairs leadership may be necessary to protect your organization from potential risks and maintain the integrity of your software development process. - Path to Adoption: Evaluate how well each GenAI coding tool integrates with your existing engineering infrastructure, tools, processes, and workflows.
Consider the level of customization and flexibility offered to ensure developer adoption of AI-assisted coding tools without friction or disruption to existing workflows. Seamless integration minimizes disruption to your development team's productivity and allows you to leverage the benefits of AI-assisted coding without significant changes to your established practices. - Scalability and Future Growth: Evaluate your organization's long-term goals and anticipated growth.
Choose a product license that can scale and adapt to your evolving needs, ensuring that GenAI tools remain a valuable asset as your organization expands.
Scalability is crucial to accommodate increasing development demands, larger teams, and more complex projects without compromising performance or functionality. - Budget and ROI: Compare the pricing and licensing models of each GenAI coding tool, considering the total cost of ownership and the potential return on investment.
Evaluate the benefits, such as increased productivity, faster time-to-market, and improved code quality, against the associated costs.
An analysis of budget and ROI helps justify the investment and ensures that you select a product that delivers the most value for your organization.
2A. ChatGPT Free
Overview
- Provides AI-powered code suggestions, predictive coding, programming language translation, code optimization, natural language processing (NLP), bug detection, test automation, and automated code review.
- Allows users to opt-out of having their content used for training.
Productivity and Workflow Optimization
- Offers access to GPT-3.5, enabling NLP capabilities with an 8k context window.
- Leverages AI to suggest code completions and predict the next logical line of code as developers’ type, enhancing coding efficiency and accuracy.
- Optimizes code performance, readability, and complexity by proposing improvements and modifications based on best practices and patterns.
- Enables translation of code between programming languages, facilitating the adaptation of existing codebases to new projects or requirements.
Security and Code Protection
- Provides automated code reviews to identify potential issues, suggest improvements, and ensure adherence to best practices and coding standards.
- Identifies potential bugs by analyzing codebases at various stages of the SDLC, helping to catch and resolve issues early in the development process.
- Automates the generation of test cases and scripts based on input scenarios, supporting testing coverage and reducing manual effort.
- Allows users to opt-out of having their content used for training the language models, giving them control over their data privacy.
- Offers assistance with threat modeling and real-time threat response, helping to proactively identify and mitigate potential security risks.
2B. ChatGPT Plus
Overview
- Builds on Free capabilities.
- Offers GPT-4 access, custom GPT creation, extended advanced data analysis tools, and web browsing functionality.
Productivity and Workflow Optimization
- Offers access to GPT-4, enabling advanced NLP capabilities, faster response time, and a 32k context window.
- Provides the ability to browse, create, and use GPTs (Generative Pre-trained Transformers) for various applications.
- Includes standard access to advanced data analysis capabilities, allowing users to extract insights and patterns from large datasets.
- Provides web browsing functionality, enabling the model to access and analyze information from the internet to enhance its knowledge and understanding.
2C. ChatGPT Team
Overview
- Builds on Plus features.
- Excludes prompts from training data by default.
- Provides increased message caps, admin console with bulk user management, admin roles, and customizable GPT management.
- Extended security and compliance measures, including SOC 2 type 1, CCPA, and GDPR compliance, along with MFA, RBAC, breach notifications, and a dedicated workspace.
Productivity and Workflow Optimization
- Offers a centralized admin console for managing user accounts, permissions, and system configurations, simplifying administrative tasks and enabling consistent control.
- Provides increased message caps on GPT-4, allowing for more extensive conversations and complex problem-solving without interruption.
- Enables customization and control over GPT models within the organization's workspace, allowing for tailored AI solutions.
- Supports bulk member management, streamlining the process of adding, removing, or updating user accounts.
- Offers admin roles with granular permissions, allowing organizations to assign responsibilities based on job functions and access requirements.
- Expands access to advanced data analysis capabilities, allowing users to extract insights and patterns from a wider range of datasets.
Data Privacy and Security
- Achieves SOC 2 type 1 compliance, demonstrating adherence to strict information security policies and procedures for managing and protecting customer data.
- Ensures compliance with data privacy regulations such as CCPA and GDPR, minimizing the risk of legal repercussions and financial penalties.
- Prioritizes security and code protection with multi-factor authentication (MFA) and role-based access control (RBAC).
- Provides data breach notifications to inform affected parties and ensure compliance with data protection regulations.
- Provides a dedicated workspace for organizations, ensuring data isolation and enhancing security.
2D. ChatGPT Enterprise
Overview
- Includes all ChatGPT Team features.
- Offers advanced security features like SAML SSO support, domain verification, custom data retention policies, sharing controls, and data encryption.
- Supports a 128k context window, analytics dashboard, admin console, and unlimited access to advanced data analysis.
- Offers IP indemnification to protect against unintentional copyright infringement.
Advanced Productivity Features
- Extends context windows to 128k, facilitating more comprehensive and context-aware NLP capabilities.
- Provides an analytics dashboard with insights into usage patterns, performance metrics, and key indicators, enabling data-driven decision-making and optimization.
- Enables unlimited access to advanced data analysis capabilities, enabling users to process and derive insights from vast amounts of data without restrictions.
- Offers unlimited access to GPT-4, enabling uninterrupted use.
Security and Compliance
- Allocates user management and SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) SSO (Single Sign-On) capabilities to simplify access control and authentication processes.
- Verifies user access based on approved domains, enhancing security and access control measures.
- Allows organizations to set custom data retention policies, ensuring compliance with internal guidelines and regulations.
- Offers sharing controls, enabling administrators to manage and regulate the distribution of generated content, protecting sensitive or proprietary information.
- Provides encryption of transmitted data, both in transit and at rest, to support the confidentiality and security of data, protecting against unauthorized access.
- Establishes IP indemnification as Copyright Shield: to protect users using the tool properly against potential copyright infringement claims.
3. Recommendation
Sema recommends the Enterprise tier for all organizational use. The added features, controls, and IP indemnification are worth the additional cost.
For More Information
Relationship to other Working Papers:
- Working Paper 01- High ROI AI Activities. Explains the calculation behind the ROI for coders using GenAI.
- Working Paper 02- Assessing IP Risks of Coders Using GenAI. One of the high ROI activities, Developers using GenAI tools while coding, is only worth the investment if the generated codebase can receive sufficient IP protection. Sema’s research indicates that the IP can indeed be protected, subject to your Counsel’s final determination.
- Working Paper 03- Comparison of tiers of GitHub Copilot GenAI Coding Tools.
- Working Paper 04- Assessing the Total Risk from GenAI Coding Tools. The risks of using GenAI coding tools, not just IP risks are mitigable.
- Working Paper 05- Comparison of tiers of Amazon CodeWhisperer GenAI Coding Tools
- Working Paper 06- Comparison of tiers of CodiumAI GenAI Coding Tools
Contact ai@semasoftware.com.
Disclosure
Sema publications should not be construed as legal advice on any specific facts or circumstances. The contents are intended for general information purposes only. To request reprint permission for any of our publications, please use our “Contact Us” form.
The availability of this publication is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship. The views set forth herein are the personal views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Firm.
