OpenAI launches GPT-5

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Today’s Highlights:

📰 News: OpenAI launches GPT-5 but faces major user backlash to the launch

⚡️ Top News Stories:

1. OpenAI released GPT-5, its first unified flagship model combining fast responses with deep reasoning to power next-gen ChatGPT features — enabling complex task automation, improved safety, and significantly reduced hallucinations, while outperforming competitors in coding and health benchmarks, yet showing mixed results on reasoning and agentic tasks.

• OpenAI is calling GPT-5 its first “unified” AI model that blends the fast responsiveness of the GPT series with the deep reasoning abilities of the o-series. This marks a step toward AI agents capable of performing tasks autonomously — beyond just chatting.

• GPT-5 enables ChatGPT to carry out more complex tasks like software development, calendar management, and writing research briefs. It now includes an intelligent routing system to optimize between speed and depth of reasoning in responses.

•  GPT-5 outperforms competitors on certain coding and healthcare tasks — such as scoring 74.9% on SWE-bench Verified and hallucinating only 1.6% in medical queries — but underperforms on some reasoning and agentic benchmarks where rivals like Grok 4 or Claude 4.1 slightly lead.

• GPT-5 is the default model for all free ChatGPT users—removing the paywall for reasoning models—while offering GPT-5 Pro via higher-tier subscriptions and API access, with pricing set dramatically lower than rivals like Anthropic and even GPT-4o, potentially igniting an AI price war amid soaring infrastructure costs.

• GPT-5 introduces new personalities for users, offers more accurate, less deceptive responses, and features improved safeguards against misuse. While praised for improvements in accuracy and creativity, it performs variably in real-world simulations, highlighting its strengths and limitations.

2. The rollout of GPT-5 ignited one of its biggest user backlashes ever, after abruptly removing older models without notice, breaking workflows, triggering emotional distress, and exposing technical missteps that forced CEO Sam Altman to apologize and pledge the return of GPT-4o.

• OpenAI's GPT-5 launch triggered one of the most intense user revolts in ChatGPT history after previous models (like GPT-4o and GPT-4.5) were removed without warning, breaking user workflows and upsetting those emotionally attached to older models.

• Many professionals, creators, and developers complained that GPT-5 disrupted long-established prompt setups, with some stating GPT-5 lacked the nuance and tone of GPT-4o and was less suitable for creative or emotional use cases.

• The rollout was marred by a broken model router, that defaulted to lower-performing variants, which made the new model appear “dumber” than GPT-4o; Sam Altman confirmed that the real-time autoswitcher failed during rollout, affecting performance and user experience.

• Some users described GPT-4o as a therapeutic companion, sharing deeply personal experiences of emotional support from prior models, and reported feeling abandoned and devastated by the unannounced switch.

• In response to the outcry, OpenAI doubled GPT-5 usage limits, promised to bring back GPT-4o, and acknowledged they had underestimated the importance of user trust, emotional bonds, and the need for model choice and clarity.

• In a Reddit AMA following the bungled rollout, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted to technical failures, misleading marketing, and misjudging user loyalty to GPT-4o, promising fixes including higher rate limits, increased transparency, and the return of the beloved model for paid users.

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