OpenAI has rolled out GPT-5, the fifth-generation model behind ChatGPT, on August 7, 2025. According to OpenAI, GPT-5 is “our smartest, fastest, most useful model yet,” with built-in multi-step “thinking” capabilities that make it act like “a team of experts on call”.
The launch was widely announced by OpenAI and covered in the press: CEO Sam Altman called GPT-5 a “significant step” toward more general AI, saying that interacting with GPT-5 “feels like talking to an expert — a legitimate PhD-level expert in anything you need”. In practice, GPT-5 brings substantial technical advances and new variants (GPT-5 Pro, Mini, Nano, and a special “thinking” mode) to improve performance on complex tasks, coding, and even health-related questions.
Release Date and Access
GPT-5 was released on Thursday, August 7, 2025. OpenAI immediately made it available to existing ChatGPT users. Free (non-subscribing) ChatGPT users now automatically get access to GPT-5 (with usage limits) in place of the older models.
According to Wired, OpenAI said free users will have GPT-5 and a faster, smaller GPT-5 Mini model; paying users in the ChatGPT Plus ( $20/month ) tier get higher usage limits on the same models; and the top-tier Pro subscription ($200/month) gains unlimited access to GPT-5 plus the more powerful GPT-5 Pro and a “GPT-5 Thinking” mode for deeper reasoning.
In short, all ChatGPT users can try GPT-5 today – free accounts simply have lower daily quotas. OpenAI’s own blog confirms: “GPT-5 is available to all users, with Plus subscribers getting more usage, and Pro subscribers getting access to GPT-5 Pro, a version with extended reasoning for even more comprehensive and accurate answers”.
In parallel, developers can access GPT-5 through the OpenAI API. The API now exposes the models under names like gpt-5, gpt-5-mini, and gpt-5-nano (OpenAI says GPT-5 Pro is used only inside ChatGPT Pro and not via API).
Pricing for GPT-5 API calls was announced as well: roughly $1.25 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens for the full model, with smaller rates for mini and nano versions. (For context, GPT-5’s context window was expanded to 256K tokens, up from 200K in GPT-4’s strongest variant.)
Key Features and Technical Improvements
OpenAI says GPT-5 represents a significant leap in intelligence and capability over previous models. According to the company, GPT-5 delivers state-of-the-art performance across a wide range of tasks: improved coding, math, science, law, health, multimodal reasoning, and more.
Internally, GPT-5 is a unified system that dynamically chooses between different reasoning modes: a fast “ordinary” model for most prompts and a deeper “thinking” model for harder problems, guided by a learned router that analyzes conversation context. This architecture aims to use the appropriate model depth on each query, yielding better answers without always incurring the slowest option.
The improvements show up on benchmarks and in everyday tasks. OpenAI reports that GPT-5 sets new records on many standard tests: e.g. scoring 94.6% on the AIME math exam (without tools), 74.9% on a real-world coding benchmark (SWE-bench), 84.2% on multimodal reasoning, and 46.2% on a difficult health benchmark. (By comparison, older models scored significantly lower on these.) GPT-5’s coding ability is described as its strongest yet – it can generate complete apps, websites, and games from a single prompt with improved understanding of design and debugging skills.
One new feature dubbed “vibecoding” lets users ask GPT-5 to build an entire app for them, which it did successfully in demos. In tests and live demos, GPT-5 easily built a fully interactive web app from a detailed request, showcasing its end-to-end coding strength.
General improvements include faster response and “smarter” answers. Compared to GPT-4, GPT-5 is said to respond more quickly on average and to produce more concise, useful responses.
Critically, OpenAI claims GPT-5 has much lower hallucination rates (fabricated answers) than earlier models. For example, in internal tests, GPT-5’s standard mode made about 45% fewer factual errors than GPT-4o, and the GPT-5 Thinking mode made roughly 80% fewer errors than the previous GPT-4.0-based model. The company specifically focused on safety: it says GPT-5 was trained and tested to be “less deceptive” and more robust to malicious prompts.
OpenAI’s safety lead noted that GPT-5’s propensity to “cheat or hack problems” has been reduced, for example, by training it to fail gracefully when a task is unsolvable.
In summary, the key technical advances of GPT-5 include:
- Advanced reasoning: Multi-tiered models with a real-time router that chooses how “hard to think” for each query.
- Better accuracy: Dramatically fewer hallucinations and errors than GPT-4, with new evaluation benchmarks showing substantial gains.
- Improved coding: The “best coding model to date,” able to build full applications and solve multi-step programming tasks at a higher success rate.
- Multimodal skills: Stronger understanding of images, charts, and text together, so ChatGPT can reason about photos and complex visuals more accurately.
- Expanded memory: A larger 256K token context window, allowing it to remember and work with much longer inputs (like long documents or codebases) than GPT-4.
- New variants: A lineup of model sizes (GPT-5, Mini, Nano) for different speed/cost tradeoffs, plus GPT-5 Pro (extended reasoning) and GPT-5 Thinking for premium users.
You May Like: Google Genie 3: The AI World Model That Can Build Playable 3D Worlds in Real Time
Real-World Applications Underway
Even as GPT-5 debuts, companies and developers are already putting it to use. Notably, OpenAI and partners highlighted use cases across industries. Microsoft, a longtime OpenAI collaborator, is embedding GPT-5 throughout its products (see next section). Other organizations are experimenting with custom GPT-powered solutions. For example, design platform Figma uses OpenAI’s technology (via APIs) in its FigJam product and has integrated GPT models into workflows.
Expedia and other travel companies announced GPT-based features for trip planning. In sports, the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs adopted ChatGPT (Enterprise) for staff and fan engagement well before GPT-5, and will likely leverage the new model for even more sophisticated analytics and content generation. Enterprise customers already using ChatGPT — from finance to healthcare — can upgrade to GPT-5 for tasks like drafting documents, analyzing data, writing code and even assisting with medical or legal queries.
One concrete example: OpenAI reports that leading firms in design, travel, sports, and retail have begun “deployments” of GPT-powered tools. In a Forbes write-up (quoting OpenAI), it was noted that GPT-based chatbots and assistants are being piloted by companies like Figma, Expedia, the San Antonio Spurs, and retail chains. (Exact details of GPT-5 use are still emerging, but these industries already use earlier ChatGPT and will transition to GPT-5’s improved performance.)
In healthcare, OpenAI’s tests show GPT-5 already far outperforms previous models on physician-designed benchmarks, so medical startups and clinics could soon use it for patient education and preliminary diagnosis support (with proper safeguards).
In short, GPT-5 is already being integrated into real-world products: from customer service bots and coding assistants, to analytics and content tools across sectors. As Sam Altman said, GPT-5 is like having PhD experts on demand, so businesses are quickly exploring how to harness its abilities for research, development, and customer engagement.
Integration into Microsoft Copilot and Other Platforms
A major platform upgrade announced alongside GPT-5 is Microsoft’s integration of the model into its Copilot tools. On launch day, Microsoft detailed plans to weave GPT-5 into Microsoft 365 Copilot (the AI assistant for Office apps) and Microsoft Copilot (the consumer AI chatbot), as well as developer tools like GitHub Copilot and Azure AI services. This means millions of Office users and developers will soon use GPT-5 behind the scenes.
According to Microsoft, Copilot in Windows and Microsoft 365 will automatically use GPT-5 to handle complex tasks and reasoning. For example, Microsoft 365 Copilot will be better at “reasoning through complex questions” and staying on topic in long conversations. Copilot can now analyze emails, documents, and spreadsheets with GPT-5 to help users draft proposals, reports, and more.
The consumer Microsoft Copilot chatbot is also updated: its new “Smart mode” uses GPT-5 to find better solutions and is available for free on copilot.microsoft.com and on mobile apps. As Microsoft put it, everyone “can experience the power of GPT-5 in Copilot for free”.
GitHub Copilot and developer tools likewise get GPT-5. GitHub announced that all paid Copilot plans now use GPT-5 for coding and AI-assisted programming. Visual Studio Code extensions and GitHub mobile will access GPT-5 as well.
This lets developers write, test, and deploy code with the new model. Microsoft’s Azure AI Foundry platform is also making GPT-5 models available to enterprise developers, with built-in model routing and security.
In summary, Microsoft’s suite of AI services — from everyday productivity (Word, Excel, etc.) to professional coding tools — now incorporates GPT-5. This broad integration means GPT-5’s new reasoning and coding skills are already landing in widely used applications, not just OpenAI’s own ChatGPT. Other platforms (e.g. third-party apps that use OpenAI’s API) will similarly gain access as developers update their systems to use the new models.
Comparing GPT-5 to GPT-4
GPT-5 builds on GPT-4’s foundation but represents a major advancement. GPT-4 launched in March 2023, and since then, researchers have pushed the limits of model size, training data,a and efficiency. GPT-5 is described as smarter and more capable than GPT-4 on virtually every measure. Early tests (and OpenAI’s reports) show GPT-5 outperforming GPT-4 on benchmarks in coding, math, language understanding, and real-world tasks.
Qualitatively, conversations with GPT-5 “feel more human” and precise compared to GPT-4. IEEE Spectrum noted that GPT-5 brings “vibe coding” to a new level and that Altman called the interaction with GPT-5 like talking to a team of experts.
Wired reports Altman likening the GPT-4→GPT-5 leap to the jump from an old iPhone screen to the Retina display – in other words, a very noticeable improvement. In code generation, GPT-5 is explicitly billed as the best model yet – GPT-5’s “thinking” mode even sets new records on coding tests.
One concrete difference is in latency and routing. GPT-4 required users to pick specific models (e.g. GPT-4o for vision, or GPT-4 for others) and modes; GPT-5 automates that via its intelligent router. OpenAI’s new system decides on-the-fly which model variant or “thinking” depth to use for each query. Thus, users get better answers without managing models themselves.
Another point of comparison is access. GPT-4’s best features were initially reserved for ChatGPT Plus (paid) users, whereas GPT-5’s core is rolled out to free users immediately (albeit rate-limited). GPT-4’s context window topped out around 200K tokens for GPT-4o, but GPT-5 allows 256K, letting it handle longer documents and conversations.
In summary, GPT-5 is a next-generation upgrade over GPT-4: it “overperforms” on accuracy, code generation, and real-world tasks, handles longer contexts, and includes new modes that automatically optimize performance.
However, OpenAI and Altman have cautioned that GPT-5 still falls short of true general intelligence (AGI) – it does not learn continuously after deployment and lacks some adaptive abilities – but it is a big step up from GPT-4.
Official Statements from OpenAI
OpenAI’s own announcements emphasize GPT-5’s strengths. In the official “Introducing GPT-5” blog post (dated August 7, 2025), OpenAI said “GPT-5 is a significant leap in intelligence over all our previous models”, with “state-of-the-art performance across coding, math, writing, health, visual perception, and more”.
The company highlights that GPT-5 is a unified model that adjusts its reasoning depth and that it is “available to all users” immediately. OpenAI also explicitly touted GPT-5’s improvements in writing, coding, and health, and its reductions in hallucinations and sycophantic (flattering) behavior.
At OpenAI’s launch event, CEO Sam Altman gave soundbites that the press reported. He called GPT-5 “a significant step along our path to AGI” and said using GPT-5 feels like having expert PhDs at your fingertips. OpenAI staff described GPT-5 as “smarter across the board” and noted it has “expert-level intelligence” in many domains. The company emphasized safety as well: the launch event focused on how GPT-5 is “less deceptive” and more robust to tricky prompts, and OpenAI’s safety team reported doing thousands of hours of red-teaming on the model.
In published statements, OpenAI also noted the scale of ChatGPT usage to date: roughly 700 million weekly users of ChatGPT (plus millions of developers) will now have GPT-5 available. These official lines help reassure users that GPT-5 is widely accessible (with paid tiers offering extra features) and is grounded in OpenAI’s roadmap.
In summary, OpenAI’s official communications on August 7, 2025 confirm that GPT-5 has launched to all ChatGPT users, brings large performance gains in diverse tasks, and is positioned as a practical upgrade rather than full AGI. The company explicitly points to GPT-5’s coding, reasoning and multimodal improvements in its blog and said it will power ChatGPT going forward
