GPT-5 is out, the early reviews are in, and they’re not great.
Many ChatGPT fans have taken to Reddit and other social media platforms to express their frustration and disappointment with OpenAI’s newest foundation model, released on Thursday.
A quick glimpse of the ChatGPT subreddit (which is not affiliated with OpenAI) shows scathing reviews of GPT-5. Since the model began rolling out, the subreddit has filled with posts calling GPT-5 a “disaster,” “horrible,” and the “biggest piece of garbage even as a paid user.”
Awkwardly, Altman and other members of the OpenAI team had a preplanned Reddit AMA to answer questions about GPT-5. In the hours ahead of the AMA, questions piled up in anticipation, with many users demanding that OpenAI bring back GPT-4o as an alternative to GPT-5.
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What Redditors are saying about GPT-5
Many of the negative first impressions say GPT-5 lacks the “personality” of GPT-4o, citing colder, shorter replies. “GPT-4o had this… warmth. It was witty, creative, and surprisingly personal, like talking to someone who got you. It didn’t just spit out answers; it felt like it listened,” said one redditor. “Now? Everything’s so… sterile.”
Another said, “GPT-5 lacks the essence and soul that separated Chatgpt (sic) from other AI bots. I sincerely wish they bring back 4o as a legacy model or something like that.”
Several redditors also criticized the fact that OpenAI did away with the option to choose different models, prompting some users to say they’re canceling their subscriptions. “I woke up this morning to find that OpenAI deleted 8 models overnight. No warning. No choice. No “legacy option,” posted one redditor who said they deleted their ChatGPT Plus account. Another user posted that they canceled their account for the same reason.
As Mashable reported yesterday, GPT-5 integrates various OpenAI models into one platform, and ChatGPT will now choose the appropriate model based on the user’s prompt. Clearly, some users miss the old system and models.
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Ironically, OpenAI has also drawn criticism for having too many model options; GPT-5 was supposed to resolve this confusion by streamlining the previous models under GPT-5.
Sam Altman responds to the criticisms
When Altman and the team logged onto the AMA, they faced a barrage of demands to bring back GPT-4o.
“Ok, we hear you all on 4o,” said Altman during the AMA. “Thanks for the time to give us the feedback (and the passion!). We are going to bring it back for Plus users, and will watch usage to determine how long to support it.”
Altman also addressed feedback that GPT-5 seemed dumber than it should have been, explaining that the “autoswitcher” that determines which version of GPT-5 to use wasn’t working. “GPT-5 will seem smarter starting today,” he said. Altman also added that the chatbot will make it clearer which model is answering a user’s prompt. OpenAI will double rate limits for ChatGPT Plus users once the rollout is finished.
“As we mentioned, we expected some bumpiness as we roll out so many things at once. But it was a little more bumpy than we hoped for!” Altman said in the AMA.
GPT-5 is an improvement, but not an exponential one
Expectations for GPT-5 could not have been higher — and that may be the real problem with GPT-5.
Gary Marcus, a cognitive scientist and author known for his research on neuroscience and artificial intelligence — and a well-known skeptic of the AI hype machine — wrote on his Substack that GPT-5 makes “Good progress on many fronts” but disappoints in others. Marcus noted that even after multi-billion-dollar investments, “GPT-5 is not the huge leap forward people long expected.”
The last time OpenAI released a frontier model was over two years ago with GPT-4. Since then, several competitors like Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, xAI’s Grok, Meta’s Llama, and DeepSeek R1 have caught up to OpenAI on benchmarks, similar agentic features, and user loyalty. For many, GPT-5 had the power to reinforce or topple OpenAI’s reign as the AI leader.
With this in mind, it’s inevitable that some users would be disappointed, and many ChatGPT users have shared positive reviews of GPT-5 as well. Time may blunt these criticisms as OpenAI makes improvements and tweaks to GPT-5. The company has also historically been responsive to user feedback, with Altman being very active on X.
“We currently believe the best way to successfully navigate AI deployment challenges is with a tight feedback loop of rapid learning and careful iteration,” the company’s mission statement avows.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
UPDATE: Aug. 8, 2025, 3:20 p.m. EDT This story has been updated with Sam Altman’s responses from the Reddit AMA.
