Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority
After years of rumors and speculation, OpenAI’s next-gen GPT-5 language model is finally here. But while many of those early rumors claimed that the next major ChatGPT model would achieve artificial general intelligence or AGI, that’s not the case.
GPT-5 does not surpass human-level intelligence, although it’s smarter and more capable than any of its predecessors. Despite the improvements, however, it has garnered significant and widespread backlash across the internet.
So what does GPT-5 bring to the table and why have so many loyal users already turned their back on it? I tested it to find out.
Why GPT-5 is so controversial Until a few days ago, the ChatGPT experience felt bloated if you weren’t an AI model expert — the app offered nearly half a dozen different models to choose from. Each model had a unique advantage. For example, the o3 series promised detailed problem-solving skills while GPT-4.1 excelled at coding tasks. And if a task required analysis, you could manually engage a “deep research” mode. However, the default GPT-4o model worked for most tasks.
All of that is now history. If you open ChatGPT today, you’ll find that you can only chat with the newest GPT-5 model. OpenAI says this is because it has created a routing system that can automatically decide which model your request needs to go to. Indeed, I’ve noticed that some prompts will inspire the chatbot to ponder and research, while it will immediately respond to simpler questions.
With GPT-5, you no longer have to select a specific model for your task.
GPT-5 does have multiple models under its belt, though, even if you can’t manually select the one you want. For example, when I asked how many times the letter “R” appears in the word strawberry, ChatGPT thought for a few seconds and returned with the correct answer: three. Hovering over the “Retry” button revealed that it had used the “GPT-5 Thinking Mini” model for my prompt.
Even on a free account, I’ve noticed that ChatGPT will default to GPT-5 for most responses and think for longer if necessary. That said, shorter responses tend to rely on the GPT-5 Mini model. And as we’ve seen for the past couple of years, free users only get a limited number of responses from the large model before the chatbot forces you over to a scaled down version. Paying $20 monthly for a ChatGPT Plus subscription overcomes this limitation, though, and you can manually select the larger GPT-5 model with thinking for all responses.
GPT-5 is less eager to hold conversations with users, and can come across as a bit curt.
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