OpenAI officially launched GPT-5, marking what the company calls “a significant leap in intelligence over all our previous models.” The announcement follows months of speculation that culminated in a cryptic social media teaser posted on August 6.

The new model is OpenAI’s most capable artificial intelligence system to date, with “state-of-the-art performance across coding, math, writing, health, visual perception, and more,” the company said. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described the new model as a “team of Ph.D.-level experts in your pocket.”

Unlike previous major releases that were initially limited to premium subscribers, GPT-5 will be available to all free users of ChatGPT as their default model starting Thursday. The move is part of a broader effort to make advanced AI reasoning models accessible to free users, as the company previously restricted these capabilities to paid subscriptions.

GPT-5 introduces several notable improvements for both general users and developers. OpenAI describes the model as “a true coding collaborator” with exceptional capabilities in code generation, debugging, editing and navigating complex codebases. The model offers enhanced precision in following detailed instructions while providing transparent explanations of its processes throughout task execution. In internal benchmarks, GPT-5 outperformed OpenAI’s o3 model in frontend web development tasks 70% of the time.

For developers, OpenAI has implemented new customization options. GPT-5 supports a new verbosity parameter with values of low, medium, and high “to help control whether answers are short and to the point or long and comprehensive.” Additionally, the model’s reasoning effort parameter can now take a minimal value to get answers back faster, without extensive reasoning processes.

Image Credit: OpenAI

Enterprise and Educational Access

Business and educational users will receive additional benefits through GPT-5 Pro, a premium version designed for professional use. “Team, Enterprise, and Edu customers will also soon get access to GPT-5 Pro, a version with extended reasoning for even more reliable and detailed answers.”

The launch also extends beyond OpenAI’s own platforms. Microsoft has announced plans to integrate GPT-5 into its ecosystem, with the model becoming available in Microsoft Copilot Studio, “a platform for building custom agents” where “users can select GPT-5 in custom prompts to enable agents to take on more complex business processes.”

Image Credit: Microsoft

Strategic Timing and Competition

The GPT-5 release comes at a critical moment in the AI industry’s development. The timing aligns with heightened competition in artificial intelligence, as companies race to develop increasingly sophisticated models. The launch follows previous speculation about OpenAI’s development timeline and represents a major milestone in the company’s roadmap.

OpenAI’s decision to make GPT-5 immediately available to free users marks a departure from its previous strategy of gradually rolling out advanced features to paying customers first. This approach suggests the company is prioritizing widespread adoption and accessibility of its most advanced AI capabilities.

The announcement positions OpenAI to maintain its competitive edge over Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, offering users across all tiers access to what the company describes as its most intelligent and versatile AI system to date.

The announcement positions OpenAI to maintain its competitive edge over rivals including Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and Meta’s Llama models, offering users across all tiers access to what the company describes as its most intelligent and versatile AI system to date.