OpenAI adjusts AI roadmap for better GPT-5

By Fionna Agomuoh Published April 4, 2025

OpenAI press image — OpenAI

OpenAI is reconfiguring its rollout plan for upcoming AI models. The company’s CEO, Sam Altman shared on social media on Friday that it will delay the launch of its GPT-5 large language model (LLM) in favor of some lighter reasoning models to release first.

The brand will now launch new o3 and o4-mini reasoning models in the coming weeks as an alternative to the GPT-5 launch fans were expecting. In this time, OpenAI will be smoothing out some issues in developing the LLM before a final rollout. The company hasn’t detailed a specific timeline, just indicating that GPT-5 should be available in the coming months.

Recommended Videos

“There are a bunch of reasons for this, but the most exciting one is that we are going to be able to make GPT-5 much better than we originally thought,” Altman said in an X post.

“We also found it harder than we thought it was going to be to smoothly integrate everything, and we want to make sure we have enough capacity to support what we expect to be unprecedented demand,” he added.

Prior reports suggested that GPT-5 might have been prepared for release in the May timeframe; however, several unforeseen developments have popped up since then. TechRadar noted that OpenAI is likely having to tackle the tons of new users its ChatGPT service has recently acquired. Its user base recently jumped from 400 million to 500 million in about an hour, after a design trend prompted by its latest GPT-4o image generation update went viral.

While the GPT-5 update has been long anticipated, the incremental updates are expected to help set up the introduction of the major rollout. The publication noted that once the o3 and o4-mini models are available, OpenAI will have products called o4 and 4o within the ChatGPT ecosystem. This might be confusing for users, but by the time the GPT-5 model rolls out, it will have the capability to select the best model for your task.

Users on the free tier of ChatGPT are also set to have limited access to the GPT-5 model. However, those with Plus and Pro subscriptions will really be able to take advantage of the coming developments.

Computing Writer

Fionna Agomuoh is a Computing Writer at Digital Trends. She covers a range of topics in the computing space, including…

Topics

Computing

5 AI apps with deep research features to rival ChatGPT

Deep Research option for ChatGPT.

Artificial intelligence brands are in fierce competition, and their next steps are to make AI tools smarter by allowing them to execute deep search functions that can provide expert-level results and analyze larger amounts of information in a shorter time. Several companies have announced deep research features in recent weeks and months that excel in areas such as finance, science, marketing, and academics. Research that would have taken a person weeks or months can be achieved in a fraction of the time, with a properly detailed prompt.

Deep research features are considered AI agents that can work independently and will allow you to make a query and let the AI process for several minutes while it generates the information and returns when it is finished to display the results. They are considered the first steps toward the concept of artificial general intelligence (AGI), which some define as a model that can process a query based on novel data that it has not been trained on, and it can produce unique content. However, we’re not quite there yet, and the main premise of deep research tools is processing large amounts of data and making it easier to understand.

Computing

Meta’s new AI app lets you share your favorite prompts with friends

Meta AI WhatsApp widget.

Meta has been playing the AI game for a while now, but unlike ChatGPT, its models are usually integrated into existing platforms rather than standalone apps. That trend ends today -- the company has launched the Meta AI app and it appears to do everything ChatGPT does and more.

Powered by the latest Llama 4 model, the app is designed to "get to know you" using the conversations you have and information from your public Meta profiles. It's designed to work primarily with voice, and Meta says it has improved responses to feel more personal and conversational. There's experimental voice tech included too, which you can toggle on and off to test -- the difference is that apparently, full-duplex speech technology generates audio directly, rather than reading written responses.

Computing

OpenAI CEO admits ChatGPT’s personality is ‘too annoying’

Deep Research option for ChatGPT.

Have you noticed that ChatGPT has gotten a little personal lately? It's not just you. OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, admitted last night that the last couple of updates to GPT-4o have affected the chatbot's personality, and not in a good way.

If you use ChatGPT often enough, you might have noticed a shift in its behavior lately. Part of it might be down to its memory, as in my experience, the chatbot addresses you differently when it doesn't rely on past chats to guide the way you'd (potentially) want it to respond. However, part of it is just that somewhere along the way, OpenAI has made ChatGPT a so-called "yes man" -- a tool that agrees with you instead of challenging you, and sometimes, the outcome can be a touch obnoxious.