Already bored with ChatGPT 5.3 Instant, which came out Tuesday? OpenAI has a new model family ready for you. The company released two new models, named GPT 5.4 Thinking and GPT 5.4 Pro, on Thursday. GPT 5.4 Thinking is built for enterprise work, like coding and overseeing AI agents.
ChatGPT 5.4 is a "thinking" model, which means it takes a little bit longer to cook its answers but those responses should be more accurate and handle more complex tasks. It's meant to be used by AI agents, which are bots that can operate independently. OpenAI said that 5.4 can more efficiently support agentic activity, meaning it uses less computing power and therefore costs less money.
OpenAI is calling GPT 5.4 its "most factual model yet," inadvertently highlighting the very real problem of when AI models hallucinate, or make stuff up. OpenAI said that should be less of an issue with 5.4, as its benchmarks reporting shows that responses from 5.4 are 18% less likely to contain errors and that individual claims are 33% less likely to be false, compared to GPT 5.2. Still, always fact-check what an AI tool tells you.
GPT 5.4 Thinking and Pro are available now for paying ChatGPT users and in the API (a developer tool). GPT 5.4 Thinking is also in Codex, OpenAI's coding application.
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GPT 5.4 is a boost for OpenAI. Having an agentic-centric model that's designed for power users willing to cough up a monthly subscription like 5.4 certainly feels like OpenAI is taking a swing at Anthropic's Claude.
Anthropic and OpenAI have been locked in a growing feud, recently kicked into higher gear by Anthropic's Super Bowl commercials attacking ChatGPT's ad rollout. But things have escalated from there, with recent reports showing that Anthropic's popularity is growing. The Claude mobile apps nabbed the top spots in Apple's and Google's app stores, and AI users are filling online forums with advice for how to transfer your data from ChatGPT to Claude. One reason some users are making the switch is because of the growing controversy between the two AI titans and the US government.
In the middle of starting a war in Iran and dealing with the subsequent growing international crisis, the Department of War (formerly the Defense Department) has been negotiating contracts with AI companies. The original deal was for Anthropic's Claude, but it fell apart last week when Anthropic refused to allow the US government to use its AI to surveil citizens and support autonomous weapon systems.
OpenAI stepped into that void, with CEO Sam Altman clarifying this week that it would implement safeguards and wouldn't be made available to intelligence agencies like the NSA. The company previously announced it had struck a $200 million deal with the defense department in 2025. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about how AI, made by any company, is being used by government agencies and defense contractors.