GPT-5 coming soon: Features, release date, and subscription tiers explained
OpenAI is set to launch GPT-5 in early August, featuring unified reasoning and simplified user experience. The model will come in standard, Mini, and Nano versions with tiered access for Free, Plus, and Pro users.
In early August, OpenAI will launch its most advanced AI model, GPT-5, as reported by The Verge. Future models will come with unified reasoning capabilities, in which user interactions will be made easy in a vast number of tasks. The CEO, Sam Altman, has publicly announced its launch, indicating that the GPT-5 will eliminate the necessity to pick one of the models to perform a certain task.
GPT-5 will be the first OpenAI model to combine both the ‘o’ series and GPT series so that the system can make the decision on the level of reasoning required based on a task-level complexity. It is also anticipated to stop the practice of using different models such as GPT-4.5 and O-3. Altman says that GPT-5 will provide a more natural experience and have better performance in different settings.
Unified Intelligence, no model picker needed
Altman said in a March post on X that GPT-5 will remove the need to use the model picker, which in the current model enables a user to switch between versions to accomplish various tasks. The new model will be smart enough to determine when to think longer or provide faster responses by itself. This development will make ChatGPT friendlier and more convenient.
The reasoning of the model is already being highlighted. In a recent podcast, Altman told a story about how GPT-5 answered a complicated question in an email that he could not answer himself and referred to it as an oh man, here it is moment. But he made it clear that GPT-5 is not going to achieve the IMO gold-level performance right away, which may take ‘many months.’
GPT-5 Tiers: Free, Plus, and Pro Users Get Different Levels
GPT-5 shall be provided at various subscription levels. Standard access will be provided to all free users at the standard intelligence level. Subscribers to ChatGPT Plus will be provided with a more intelligent version, whereas subscribers to Pro could deploy GPT-5 at the highest level of its intelligence. Such a tiered system reflects the pricing structure of OpenAI, though it introduces greater flexibility when it comes to the quality of output.
Nano and mini versions to widen accessibility
OpenAI will also launch GPT-5 Mini and GPT-5 Nano in addition to the regular model. The ChatGPT and the API will incorporate the Mini version, and the Nano version might be restricted to the API. These smaller versions are meant to provide quicker, lighter versions to do certain tasks or on devices with fewer resources.
Open-Source Model Coming First
OpenAI will release its long-hyped open-source model before the end of July, before GPT-5 goes live. This model would be able to rival the O3 mini version of reasoning. The launch of the Altman project has been postponed several times, but recently, the research team reported that they achieved something unexpected and quite amazing, and the delay is worth the wait.
Although the preliminary August schedule of the GPT-5 launch remains unchanged, there are possibilities that it may change because of developmental challenges, server limitations, or the introduction of other competitive AI systems. However, GPT-5 is an important milestone in the quest of OpenAI to make general-purpose AI more intelligent, easier, and more accessible to all.