13-2-2025 OpenAI’s Chief Executive Sam Altman has unveiled ambitious plans for the company’s next wave of artificial intelligence models, with the upcoming GPT-4.5 expected to debut within weeks, followed by the much-anticipated GPT-5 in the coming months.
In a significant announcement shared on social media platform X on 12 February, Altman revealed that GPT-4.5, internally dubbed ‘Orion’, will mark the company’s final non-chain-of-thought model before a major technological shift in their approach to AI development.
“Our vision extends beyond traditional language models,” Altman explained, outlining plans to merge the company’s o-series and GPT-series models. This integration aims to create more versatile systems capable of deploying appropriate cognitive resources based on task complexity.
The forthcoming GPT-5 will incorporate the firm’s advanced o3 technology, marking a departure from standalone reasoning models. This integration follows the recent launch of o3-mini on 31 January, which was specifically designed to enhance mathematical, coding, and scientific analysis capabilities.
In a move that democratises access to advanced AI, Altman confirmed that GPT-5 will be available to free users, albeit with certain limitations to prevent misuse. Premium subscribers will enjoy enhanced access to the model’s more sophisticated features.
These developments come amid intensifying competition in the AI sector. Recent months have seen the emergence of rival platform DeepSeek, prompting investigations by Microsoft and OpenAI into potential data misappropriation. Meanwhile, Google’s DeepMind has launched Gemini 2.0, positioning it as a foundation for future AI development.
Industry leaders are already speculating about the future direction of AI technology. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has suggested that autonomous agents, rather than traditional language models, will define the next era of artificial intelligence. This view is echoed by Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang, who has positioned his company to lead in agentic AI development.
