OpenAI’s GPT-5 has arrived after a year of Sam Altman hyping it up. Here’s what it can do.

After weeks of relentless hype, GPT-5 is finally here.

OpenAI officially released the highly anticipated new model on Thursday. It’s the latest version of ChatGPT, the company’s flagship chatbot, and the most widely used AI model on the market.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it a “major upgrade” and “a significant step along the path of AGI” in a conference call with journalists on Wednesday. He said that after using GPT-5, going back to GPT-4 was “miserable.”

OpenAI says the model will be available for free for everyone and that users will no longer need to switch between previous models for different tasks. GPT-5 will switch automatically, the company said, depending on the kind of request and its complexity. GPT-5 will be available in standard, mini, and nano versions. Paid users will have higher usage limits.

Altman said GPT-5 was also the company’s fastest model yet.

“One of the things I had been pushing the team on was like, ‘Hey, we need to make it way, way faster,'” Altman said. “And I now have this experience of like, ‘Are you sure you thought enough?'”

The team said GPT-5 will have improved capabilities for vibe coding, the latest craze in Silicon Valley.

OpenAI has been teasing this next iteration of ChatGPT for over a year, but has ramped up the chatter in the last few days and weeks. On Sunday, Altman shared a screenshot of GPT-5 on X, asking the model to recommend the “most thought-provoking” TV show about AI.

In July, Altman said that “GPT-5 is smarter than us in almost every way.” Speaking to podcaster Theo Von, Altman said he asked GPT-5 a question he “didn’t quite understand” and it “answered it perfectly,” making him feel “useless relative to the AI.”

The OpenAI CEO also likened GPT-5’s development to the Manhattan Project, the US government’s effort to build the atomic bomb during World War II, and said that it made him feel nervous.

“There are moments in the history of science, where you have a group of scientists look at their creation and just say, you know: ‘What have we done?'” Altman said.

OpenAI’s last notable model launch was GPT-4.5 in February, which Altman described at the time as “the first model that feels like talking to a thoughtful person.”

The release of GPT-5 has faced several delays, with the timeline shifting from mid-2024 to mid-2025, to August.

During that time, the number of ChatGPT users has continued to grow. In April, Altman said ChatGPT has 500 million weekly active users. OpenAI said on Thursday that ChatGPT is now on track to hit 700 million weekly active users “this week.”

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