CEO Sam Altman just shared a roadmap on X, revealing that OpenAI’s upcoming GPT-5 release will feature its o3 reasoning model and, notably, be available to free users. He also mentioned that the company is working on making ChatGPT even easier to use.
We want AI to “just work” for you; we realize how complicated our model and product offerings have gotten. We hate the model picker as much as you do and want to return to magic unified intelligence.
– Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, February 2025
As for OpenAI’s roadmap, Altman revealed that GPT-4.5 will be the last model without “chain-of-thought” reasoning. That means every model after it will be able to break down problems into smaller steps to improve reasoning.
Once GPT-4.5 is out, OpenAI’s main focus will be unifying its o-series and GPT-series models, creating a system that can seamlessly switch between tools, decide when to take its time thinking, and generally handle a wide range of tasks more effectively.
When GPT-5 does land, OpenAI intends to offer free users unlimited access – though with restrictions to prevent abuse – at the “standard intelligence setting.” Plus, subscribers will get access to a more advanced version, while Pro users will be able to tap into an even higher intelligence tier.
As for when all of this is happening, Altman didn’t give a firm date for either GPT-4.5 or GPT-5, only mentioning that they could arrive in the coming weeks or months.
