FILE PHOTO: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has confirmed that GPT-4o will be returning to ChatGPT Plus after users complained about the model being abruptly substituted by GPT-5.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has confirmed that GPT-4o will be returning to ChatGPT Plus after users complained about the model being abruptly substituted by GPT-5. Post the long-awaited launch of their latest flagship AI model a few days ago, the AI firm removed the model picker for ChatGPT users and replaced it with just GPT-5.
“We will let Plus users choose to continue to use 4o. We will watch usage as we think about how long to offer legacy models for,” Altman said in a post on X announcing the change.
Several posts flooded Reddit, X and the OpenAI Developer Community forum describing how the loss of the older version of the AI model had an emotional impact on them.
“I was told that newer models would be added as options – not replace the old ones. That reassurance gave me peace of mind,” the top-rated comment with 237 upvotes, on the Developer Community support page stated. “It might look similar, but it won’t be the same “mind”, the same continuity, the same emotional presence. This is not an upgrade – this is the loss of something unique and deeply meaningful,” they continued.
Aside from the loss of their “AI companion,” users also said that manually selecting the AI model was far more preferable than having a single default model.
Altman also explained why GPT-5’s performance appeared to be disappointing.
“Yesterday, the autoswitcher broke and was out of commission for a chunk of the day, and the result was GPT-5 seemed way dumber. Also, we are making some interventions to how the decision boundary works that should help you get the right model more often,” he noted.
Published – August 11, 2025 12:50 pm IST