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ZDNET's key takeaways:
OpenAI released its long-awaited GPT-5 on Thursday.
Some users complained GPT-5 was inferior to its predecessor, 4o.
In response, the company announced a flurry of changes.
OpenAI released GPT-5, the long-awaited upgrade to the model which powers ChatGPT, Thursday. In typical OpenAI fashion, the release has included plenty of twists, turns, and drama.
It was almost inevitable that the new model would disappoint a significant number of people, given how intensely it was hyped leading up to its release. On Aug. 2, Xikun Zhang, a research scientist at OpenAI, wrote in an X post that "GPT-5 really feels like the most anticipated product launch in history." (The post was later deleted.)
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
Also: How you can still access GPT-4o, o3, and other older models in ChatGPT
Sure enough, GPT-5 has debuted more with a whimper than a bang.
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