OpenAI on Thursday released GPT-5, an upgraded version of the artificial intelligence technology that powers its popular chatbot, ChatGPT. The company promises better results on tasks including answering health questions, writing and generating computer code. ChatGPT has more than 700 million weekly users, OpenAI has said.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called the model a "significant step forward" to achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), which the startup defines as a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work. However, Altman admitted GPT-5 had not reached that goal yet, pointing to the model's inability to “continuously learn”.
According to OpenAI executives, GPT-5 responds to questions faster than OpenAI's previous offerings and is less likely to “hallucinate” or make up false answers. OpenAI's new AI software can also answer queries using a process dubbed reasoning that shows the user a series of messages attempting to break down a question into steps before giving its final answer. “GPT-5 is the first time that it really feels like talking to an expert, a PhD-level expert,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said.
All ChatGPT users will get access to GPT-5, even those using the free version. But only those with a $200-a-month “Pro” subscription get unlimited access to the newly released system. Users not paying for ChatGPT will only be able to ask a certain number of questions answered by GPT-5 before the chatbot switches back to using an older version of OpenAI's technology.
Altman said GPT-5 is particularly good at generating computer programming code, a feature that has become a major selling point for OpenAI and rival AI developers. In a demo, the company showed how two paragraphs of instruction was enough to have GPT-5 create a simple website offering tutoring in French, complete with a word game and daily vocabulary tests. This capability, dubbed "vibe coding," allows users to describe the type of software they want to create and let the AI do the rest. Vibe coding is a type of software development that doesn't require any traditional coding skills.