OpenAI's GPT-5.4 mini and nano launch - with near flagship performance at much lower cost

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET

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ZDNET's key takeaways

GPT-5.4 mini runs more than twice as fast as GPT-5 mini.

New models aim at agents, coding, and multi-modal workflows.

Developers can mix large planning models with cheaper subagents.

Over the past few weeks, we have seen the generation of OpenAI's flagship large language models iterate from GPT-5.3 to GPT-5.4. Think of the model as the engine that powers AI computation. Each generational jump usually results in increased performance and accuracy.

Also: OpenAI's new GPT-5.4 clobbers humans on pro-level work in tests - by 83%

The actual releases can be a bit difficult to track without a scorecard. On March 5, OpenAI released GPT-5.4 Thinking, a high-performance, in-depth thinking model. Two days earlier, it released GPT-5.3 (not 5.4) Instant, a model that "makes everyday conversations more consistently helpful and fluid," but not necessarily more accurate.

This week, OpenAI is releasing the GPT-5.4 mini and GPT-5.4 nano models. These models are designed for fast, efficient, high-volume AI workloads. These are basically the budget language model offerings.

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