OpenAI is finally going to make ChatGPT a lot less confusing – and hints at a GPT-5 release window

• ChatGPT will one day unify all of OpenAI's LLMs
• GPT-5 will be free for all users with higher intelligence for paying subscribers
• As part of the unification process, OpenAI's o3 will no longer be available as a standalone model when GPT-5 launches

OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, just revealed some major info on the future of ChatGPT that will see all GPT models including the upcoming GPT-5 unified without the need to pick a model for each occasion.

At the time of writing, you need to choose between different OpenAI models every time you use ChatGPT, whether that's GPT-4o for everyday tasks or a more focused reasoning model like o3-mini for problem-solving. But that could all be about to change according to Altman who promises a simplifying of ChatGPT that "just works".

On X, Altman said, "We want AI to “just work” for you; we realize how complicated our model and product offerings have gotten. We hate the model picker as much as you do and want to return to magic unified intelligence."

This would essentially mean that you'd no longer need to choose between AI models and ChatGPT would be able to determine which model is best depending on your prompt. Altman said, "a top goal for us is to unify o-series models and GPT-series models by creating systems that can use all our tools, know when to think for a long time or not, and generally be useful for a very wide range of tasks."

This would be a pretty incredible feet and a huge improvement over the current system which means you have to constantly change between models depending on what's best suited for your needs. Even more so, the average consumer sometimes doesn't know which model is best for which scenario, so having ChatGPT do that work for you removes a point of friction from the process.

He goes on to say that GPT-4.5, the successor to 4o, will be the final ChatGPT model to launch as a standalone model before combining all models in a system that uses all of OpenAI's tools simultaneously.

This means that when GPT-5 does inevitably launch it will "integrate a lot of our (OpenAI's) technology, including o3." Altman even confirmed that o3 will no longer be shipped as a standalone model when this change occurs.

Unlimited access to GPT-5

As if the news of OpenAI planning to unify all of its AI models wasn't big enough, Altman's roadmap also revealed that the free tier of ChatGPT will get unlimited access to GPT-5 at its "standard intelligence setting." Plus subscribers will get an even "higher level of intelligence" while Pro subscribers, who pay the hefty $200/month fee, will get the highest level of GPT-5 intelligence.

One X user took the opportunity of Altman sharing future ChatGPT info to ask for an ETA for GPT-4.5 and GPT-5. Altman responded "weeks / months". Whether that means 4.5 is weeks away and 5 is months away or it was just a cheeky response to the users "Weeks?Months?" question, your guess is as good as mine.

While Altman didn't confirm a release date for GPT-4.5 or GPT-5 he did confirm that GPT-5 will incorporate voice, canvas, search, deep research, and more. So while we don't know how long we're going to have to wait, the wait should be worth it.

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