OpenAI cancels o3 AI model to focus on 'unified' GPT-5
What's the story
OpenAI has decided to cancel the release of its much-anticipated AI model, o3. Instead, the company will be focusing on a more streamlined product offering. This strategic shift was announced by CEO Sam Altman in a post on social media platform X. The decision comes despite previous plans to introduce o3 early this year and recent confirmation from OpenAI's Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil that it was set for a "February-March" debut.
Twitter Post
Take a look at Altman's post
OPENAI ROADMAP UPDATE FOR GPT-4.5 and GPT-5:
— Sam Altman (@sama) February 12, 2025
We want to do a better job of sharing our intended roadmap, and a much better job simplifying our product offerings.
We want AI to “just work” for you; we realize how complicated our model and product offerings have gotten.
We hate…
Strategic shift
OpenAI's future plans for AI model releases
Altman revealed that OpenAI is planning to launch a new model, GPT-5, in the coming months. He said the company's top goal 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." The integration will be part of chatbot platform ChatGPT and API. Notably, o3 won't be released as an independent model.
User experience
OpenAI aims for simplified and unified AI experience
Altman wants to simplify OpenAI's product offerings and improve their roadmap communication. "We want AI to 'just work' for you; we realize how complicated our model and product offerings have gotten," he said in his X post. "We hate the model picker as much as you do and want to return to magic unified intelligence." The CEO also said that they plan to give unlimited chat access to GPT-5 at a "standard intelligence setting," once it becomes widely available.
Subscription benefits
GPT-5 to offer advanced features for subscribers
Altman also revealed that ChatGPT Plus subscribers will be able to run GPT-5 at an "enhanced level of intelligence." ChatGPT Pro subscribers will be able to run GPT-5 at an "even higher level of intelligence." The next-gen model is likely to feature voice, canvas, search, deep research capabilities among other things.
Model evolution
OpenAI's transition toward reasoning models
Before GPT-5 launches, OpenAI plans to launch its GPT-4.5 model, code-named "Orion," in the coming weeks. Altman described Orion as the company's last "non-chain-of-thought model." This marks a transition to reasoning models that are more reliable but may take longer to arrive at solutions due to their self-fact-checking process.