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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- OpenAI is bidding adieu to 4o, a favourite mannequin amongst many customers.
- Chats with 4o will nonetheless be accessible after that date.
- The corporate says only one% of its customers nonetheless interact with 4o.
It is a unhappy day for a lot of ChatGPT customers.
GPT-4o, the mannequin that is turn into a favourite for many individuals due to its heat and pleasant conversational tone, might be retired on Feb. 13, OpenAI introduced Thursday. Which means it will now not be accessible to paid customers through the mannequin selector menu in ChatGPT, although it will nonetheless be accessible by way of OpenAI’s API for the foreseeable future. ChatGPT’s free customers — which comprise round 90% of OpenAI’s userbase — haven’t had entry to 4o since OpenAI debuted GPT-5 in August.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET’s dad or mum firm, filed an April 2025 lawsuit towards OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in coaching and working its AI programs.)
Additionally: Listed below are all of the GPT-5 updates OpenAI has rolled out since launch
GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, OpenAI o4-mini, and GPT-5 On the spot and Pondering can even be discontinued beginning Feb. 13. However OpenAI is treading additional fastidiously within the case of 4o, after it confronted consumer blowback when the mannequin was briefly eliminated after the discharge of GPT-5.
“We all know that shedding entry to GPT‑4o will really feel irritating for some customers, and we did not make this determination evenly,” the corporate wrote in its announcement. “Retiring fashions isn’t straightforward, nevertheless it permits us to give attention to enhancing the fashions most individuals use at this time.”
What to anticipate
The excellent news is that for many ChatGPT customers, the transition ought to really feel fairly seamless — at the very least in essentially the most sensible phrases.
If you happen to’re a Plus or Professional subscriber, no matter which fashions you’ve got been utilizing, your entire preexisting conversations with ChatGPT will nonetheless be accessible after the Feb. 13 retirement date. You can proceed them, simply utilizing completely different fashions. Free customers will nonetheless use GPT-5 as their default mannequin, so for all intents and functions, the change will not be noticeable for them.
Additionally: Is ChatGPT Plus nonetheless value your $20? I in contrast it to the Free, Go, and Professional plans – here is my recommendation
Present GPTs primarily based on 4o or any of the opposite soon-to-be-retired fashions might be switched to GPT-5.2 on Feb. 13, in line with OpenAI’s web site. ChatGPT’s voice mode and image-generating capabilities will not be affected by the change, since they each at the moment use a mannequin that is completely different from (though much like) 4o.
Vibe shift
Essentially the most noticeable change might be for these paying customers who nonetheless use 4o as a result of they like its tone and conversational model of 4o over these of newer fashions.
This turned a significant flashpoint for the corporate when 4o was initially discontinued following the August GPT-5 launch. The corporate was fast to reinstate it for some paid customers, and it promised to heed the detrimental suggestions shifting ahead. Each GPT-5.1 and 5.2 got here with numerous “personalizable presets,” together with “skilled,” “candid,” and “quirky,” the concept being to make the fashions extra adjustable to particular person consumer preferences.
Additionally: I put GPT-5.2 by way of a 14-round check, and the AI mannequin raised some critical questions
In its Thursday announcement, OpenAI wrote that solely round 1% of ChatGPT customers nonetheless interact with 4o. Nonetheless, a few of these 900,000 or so paying clients clearly resent OpenAI’s determination to retire the mannequin.
A few them have argued that the 1% determine is deceptive, because it factored within the rather more large swathe of free customers who do not have entry to 4o. “I feel that share could be vastly completely different in the event you have a look at [subscribed users] solely,” one individual wrote within the OpenAI subreddit on Thursday night time.
One other was already attempting to rally help to reverse the choice. “Time to go to vary.org and begin filling out petitions once more,” they wrote. “We introduced 4o again final time. We’ll deliver it again once more.”
