OpenAI is set to fundamentally change how users interact with its AI technology through the upcoming release of GPT-5, expected to launch in summer 2025.
The company has confirmed that GPT-5 will unify advancements from several specialized models into a single, more capable system. With GPT-5, OpenAI plans to merge the breakthrough capabilities across its lineup and deliver the best of both worlds. "We're truly excited to not just make a net new great frontier model, we're also going to unify our two series," says Romain Huet, OpenAI's Head of Developer Experience. "The breakthrough of reasoning in the O-series and the breakthroughs in multi-modality in the GPT-series will be unified, and that will be GPT-5."
This unified approach will remove the need to switch between specialized versions, integrating reasoning, multimodal input, and task execution in one model. It's specifically designed for advanced, multi-step reasoning with significantly fewer hallucinations compared to earlier models.
Currently, OpenAI maintains separate models for different capabilities: Users have to choose between different specialized models for specific tasks. Until now, these tasks are distributed between GPT-4.1, Dall-E, GPT-4o, o3, Advanced Voice, Vision, and Sora. Right now, if you want to use OpenAI's tools, you're constantly jumping between GPT-4 for general tasks, GPT-4o for multimodal work, and various reasoning models for complex problems. GPT-5 changes this completely by automatically adjusting its approach based on what you're trying to accomplish. No more guessing which model to pick – the system handles that decision-making behind the scenes.
Building on the o-series models like o1 and o3, GPT-5 will integrate true chain-of-thought reasoning as a core feature rather than an optional add-on. This means the model will handle multi-step logic and complex problem-solving more effectively. GPT-4o already handles text, images, and voice, but that's just the starting point. GPT-5 takes this foundation and builds something far more sophisticated – potentially including full video processing capabilities, drawing from the work OpenAI has done with Sora.
In a recent interview, Sam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, confirmed that ChatGPT's GPT-5 model release date is sometime in summer, but it depends on a number of factors. OpenAI has internal benchmarks and other standards set for GPT-5, and unless those are met, OpenAI might not release the model to the public. Sam added that he doesn't know 'exactly when' GPT-5 will be rolled out, but there will be significant improvements.
This unified approach represents a significant shift in AI model development, moving away from specialized models toward more versatile, integrated systems that can handle multiple types of tasks with greater efficiency. For users, this means a more seamless experience without having to learn which model is best for which task.