When OpenAI launched GPT-5 final week, the corporate mentioned the mannequin would simplify the ChatGPT expertise. OpenAI hoped GPT-5 would act as a kind of “one measurement matches all” AI mannequin with a router that might mechanically determine easy methods to greatest reply person questions. The corporate mentioned this unified strategy would remove the necessity for customers to navigate its mannequin picker — an extended, difficult menu of AI choices that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly mentioned he hates.
Nevertheless it appears like GPT-5 just isn’t the unified AI mannequin OpenAI hoped it will be.
Altman mentioned in a publish on X Tuesday that the corporate launched new “Auto”, “Quick”, and “Pondering” settings for GPT-5 that each one ChatGPT customers can choose from the mannequin picker. The Auto setting appears to work like GPT-5’s mannequin router that OpenAI initially introduced; nevertheless, the corporate can be giving customers choices to circumnavigate it, permitting them to entry quick and sluggish responding AI fashions immediately.
Updates to ChatGPT:
Now you can select between “Auto”, “Quick”, and “Pondering” for GPT-5. Most customers will need Auto, however the further management will probably be helpful for some individuals.
Price limits are actually 3,000 messages/week with GPT-5 Pondering, after which further capability on GPT-5 Pondering…
— Sam Altman (@sama) August 13, 2025
Alongside GPT-5’s new modes, Altman mentioned that paid customers can as soon as once more entry a number of legacy AI fashions — together with GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, and o3 — which had been deprecated simply final week. GPT-4o is now within the mannequin picker by default, whereas different AI fashions will be added from ChatGPT’s settings.
“We’re engaged on an replace to GPT-5’s character which ought to really feel hotter than the present character however not as annoying (to most customers) as GPT-4o,” Altman wrote within the publish on X. “Nonetheless, one studying for us from the previous few days is we actually simply have to get to a world with extra per-user customization of mannequin character.”
ChatGPT’s mannequin picker now options a number of choices (Credit score: openai/maxwell zeff)
ChatGPT’s mannequin picker now appears to be as difficult as ever, suggesting that GPT-5’s mannequin router has not universally happy customers as the corporate hoped. The expectations for GPT-5 had been sky excessive, with many hoping that OpenAI would push the bounds of AI fashions prefer it had with the launch of GPT-4. Nonetheless, GPT-5’s rollout has been rougher than anticipated.
The deprecation of GPT-4o and different AI fashions in ChatGPT sparked a backlash amongst customers who had grown hooked up to the AI fashions’ responses and personalities in ways in which OpenAI had not anticipated. Sooner or later, Altman says the corporate will give customers loads of advance discover if it ever deprecates GPT-4o.
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GPT-5’s mannequin router additionally seemed to be largely damaged on launch day. That brought on some customers to really feel the AI mannequin wasn’t as performant as earlier OpenAI fashions, and compelled Altman to handle the issue in an AMA session on Reddit. Nonetheless, evidently GPT-5’s router should still not be satisfying for all customers.
“We’re not at all times going to get every little thing on strive #1 however I’m very happy with how rapidly the workforce can iterate,” wrote OpenAI’s VP of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, in a publish on X Tuesday.
Routing prompts to the precise AI mannequin is a tough job that requires aligning an AI mannequin to a person’s preferences, in addition to the precise query they’re asking. The router then has to decide on which AI mannequin to ship the immediate to in only a break up second — that approach, if a immediate goes to a quick responding AI mannequin, the response can nonetheless be quick.
Extra broadly, some individuals exhibit preferences for AI fashions that transcend quick or sluggish responses. Some customers might just like the verbosity of 1 AI mannequin, whereas others would possibly recognize the contrarian solutions of one other.
Human attachment to sure AI fashions is a comparatively new idea that isn’t effectively understood. For instance, a whole lot of individuals in San Francisco just lately held a funeral for Anthropic’s AI mannequin, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, when it was taken offline. In different circumstances, AI chatbots appear to be contributing to mentally unstable individuals taking place psychotic rabbit holes.
It appears OpenAI has extra work to do round aligning its AI fashions to particular person person preferences.
