OpenAI’s o3-mini reasoning model arrives to counter DeepSeek


Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More


OpenAI has released a new proprietary AI model in time to counter the rapid rise of open source rival DeepSeek-R1 — but will it be enough to blunt the latter’s success?

Today, after several days of rumors and increasing anticipation among AI users on social media, OpenAl is debuting o3-mini, the second model in its new family of “reasoners” — Al models that take slightly more time to “think,” analyze their own processes and reflect on their own “chains of thought” before responding to user queries and inputs with new outputs.

The result is a model that can perform at the level of a PhD student or even degree-holder on answering hard questions in math, science, engineering and many other fields.

The o3-mini model is now available on ChatGPT, including the free tier, and on OpenAI’s application programming interface (API). And, it’s actually less expensive, faster and more performant than the previous high-end model, OpenAI’s o1, and its faster, lower-parameter count sibling, o1-mini.

While inevitably it will be compared to DeepSeek-R1 — and the release date is seen by some as a reaction — it’s important to remember that o3 and o3-mini were announced well prior to the January release of DeepSeek R1, in December 2024, and that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated previously on X that due to feedback from developers and researchers, it would be coming to ChatGPT and the OpenAI API at the same time.

Unlike DeepSeek-R1, o3-mini will not be made available as an open-source model — meaning the code cannot be downloaded for offline usage, nor customized to the same extent, which may limit its appeal compared to DeepSeek-R1 for some applications.

OpenAI did not provide any further details about the (presumed) larger o3 model announced back in December alongside o3-mini. At that time, OpenAI’s opt-in dropdown form for testing o3 stated that it would undergo a “delay of multiple weeks” before third-parties could test it.

Performance and Features

Similar to o1, OpenAI o3-mini is optimized for reasoning in math, coding and science.

Its performance is comparable to OpenAI o1 when using medium reasoning effort, but offers the following advantages:

  • 24% faster response times compared to o1-mini (OpenAI didn’t provide a specific number here, but looking at third-party evaluation group Artificial Analysis’s tests, o1-mini’s response time is 12.8 seconds to receive and output 100 tokens. So, for o3-mini, a 24% speed bump would drop the response time down to 10.32 seconds.)
  • Improved accuracy, with external testers preferring o3-mini’s responses 56% of the time.
  • 39% fewer major errors on complex real-world questions.
  • Better performance in coding and STEM tasks, particularly when using high reasoning effort.
  • Three reasoning effort levels (low, medium, high), allowing users and developers to balance accuracy and speed.

The model also boasts impressive benchmarks, even outpacing o1 in some cases, according to the o3-mini system card OpenAI released online (which was published earlier than the official model availability announcement).

o3-mini’s context window — the number of combined tokens it can input/output in a single interaction — is 200,000, with a maximum of 100,000 in each output. That’s the same as the full o1 model and outperforms DeepSeek–R1’s context window of around 128,000/130,000 tokens. But, it is far below Google Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking’s new context window of up to 1 million tokens.

While o3-mini focuses on reasoning capabilities, it doesn’t yet have vision capabilities. Developers and users looking to upload images and files should keep using o1 in the meantime.

The competition heats up

The arrival of o3-mini marks the first time OpenAI is making a reasoning model available to free ChatGPT users. The prior o1 model family was only available to paying subscribers of ChatGPT Plus, Pro and other plans, as well as via OpenAI’s paid API.

As it did with large language model (LLM)-powered chatbots via the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, OpenAI essentially created the entire category of reasoning models in September 2024 when it first unveiled o1, a class of models with a new training regime and architecture.

But OpenAI, in keeping with its recent history, did not make o1 open source, contrary to its name and original founding mission. Instead, it kept the model’s code proprietary.

And, over the last two weeks, o1 has been overshadowed by Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, which launched R1, a rival, highly efficient, largely open-source reasoning model freely available to take, retrain and customize by anyone around the world, as well as use for free on DeepSeek’s website and mobile app — a model reportedly trained at a fraction of the cost of o1 and other LLMs from top labs.

DeepSeek-R1’s permissive MIT Licensing terms, free app/website for consumers and decision to make R1’s codebase freely available to take and modify has led it to a veritable explosion of usage both in the consumer and enterprise markets — even OpenAI investor Microsoft and Anthropic backer Amazon rushing to add variants of it to their cloud marketplaces. Perplexity, the AI search company, also quickly added a variant of it for users.

DeepSeek also dethroned the ChatGPT iOS app as No. 1 number in the U.S. Apple App Store, and is notable for outpacing OpenAI by connecting its R1 model to web search in its app and on the web. this is something that OpenAI has not yet done for o1, leading to further techno anxiety among tech workers and others online that China is catching up or has outpaced the U.S. in AI innovation — or even in technology more generally.

Many AI researchers, scientists and top VCs such as Marc Andreessen, however, have welcomed the rise of DeepSeek, and its open sourcing in particular, as a tide that lifts all boats in the AI field, increasing the intelligence available to everyone while reducing costs.

Availability in ChatGPT

o3 is now rolling out globally to ChatGPT Free, Plus, Team and Pro users, with Enterprise and Education access coming next week.

  • Free users can try o3-mini for the first time by selecting the “reason” button in the chat bar or regenerating a response.
Screenshot of ChatGPT prompting bar with “reason” button. Note that the prompt provided in OpenAI’s screenshot slyly references “AI distillation,” which rival DeepSeek is accused of having done — take the outputs of OpenAI models and used them to train its own R1.
  • Message limits have increased 3X for Plus and Team users, up from 50 to 150 messages per day.
  • Pro users get unlimited access to both o3-mini and a new, even higher-reasoning variant, o3-mini-high.

Additionally, o3-mini now supports search integration within ChatGPT, providing responses with relevant web links. This feature is still in its early stages as OpenAI refines search capabilities across its reasoning models.

API Integration and Pricing

For developers, o3-mini is available via the Chat Completions API, Assistants API and Batch API. The model supports function calling, structured outputs and developer messages, making it easy to integrate into real-world applications.

One of o3-mini’s most notable advantages is its cost efficiency: It’s 63% cheaper than OpenAI o1-mini and 93% cheaper than the full o1 model, priced at $1.10/$4.40 per million tokens in/out (with a 50% cache discount).

Yet it still pales in comparison to the affordability of the official DeepSeek API‘s offering of R1 at $0.14/$0.55 per million tokens in/out. But given DeepSeek is based in China and comes with attendant geopolitical awareness and security concerns about the user/enterprise’s data flowing into and out of the model, it’s likely that OpenAI will remain the preferred API for some security-focused customers and enterprises in the U.S. and Europe.

Developers can also adjust the reasoning effort level (low, medium, high) based on their application needs, allowing for more control over latency and accuracy trade-offs.

On safety, OpenAI says it used something called “deliberative alignment” with o3-mini. This means the model was asked to reason about the human-authored safety guidelines it was given, understand more of their intent and the harms they are designed to prevent and come up with its own ways of ensuring those harms are prevented. OpenAI says it allows the model to be less censorious when discussing sensitive topics while also preserving safety.

OpenAI says the model outperforms GPT-4o in handling safety and jailbreak challenges, and that it conducted extensive external safety testing prior to release today.

A recent report covered in Wired (where my wife works) showed that DeepSeek succumbed to every jailbreak prompt and attempt out of 50 tested by security researchers, which may give OpenAI o3-mini the edge over DeepSeek R1 in cases where security and safety are paramount.

What’s next?

The launch of o3-mini represents OpenAI’s broader effort to make advanced reasoning AI more accessible and cost-effective in the face of more intense competition than ever before from DeepSeek’s R1 and others. This includes Google, which recently released a free version of its own rival reasoning model Gemini 2 Flash Thinking with an expanded input context of up to 1 million tokens.

With its focus on STEM reasoning and affordability, OpenAI aims to expand the reach of AI-driven problem-solving in both consumer and developer applications.

But as the company becomes more ambitious than ever — for instance, recently announcing a $500 billion data center infrastructure project called Stargate with backing from Softbank — the question remains whether or not its strategy will pay off well enough to justify the multi-billions sunken into it by deep-pocketed investors such as Microsoft and other VCs.

As open-source models increasingly close the gap with OpenAI in performance and outmatch it in cost, will its reportedly superior safety measures, powerful capabilities, easy-to-use API and user-friendly interfaces be enough to maintain customers — especially in the enterprise — who may prioritize cost and efficiency over these attributes? As always, we’ll be reporting on the developments as they unfold.



Source link

Share

Latest Updates

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Articles

As Elon Musk Reviews Moon Program, Boeing Warns Workers Building Artemis Rocket of Mass Layoffs

Aerospace giant Boeing is warning that hundreds of workers currently working on NASA's...

France, EU Promise Simplified Regulation For AI Growth

France and the EU will...

Macron Pitches Lighter Regulation to Fuel A.I. Boom in Europe

An artificial intelligence race is heating up between the United States and China...

Best over-the-air DVR for cord cutters in 2025

You might not need a TV antenna to cut the cord, but one...
SULTAN88
SULTANSLOT
RAJA328
JOIN88
GFC88
HOKIBET
RUSIASLOT88
TAHU69
BONANZA99
PRAGMABET
MEGA55
LUXURY777
LUXURY333
BORJU89
QQGAMING
KEDAI168
MEGA777
NAGASLOT777
TAKSU787
KKSLOT777
MAS77TOTO
bandar55
BOS303
HOKI99
NUSA365
YUHUSLOT
KTP168
GALAXY138
NEXIA138
PETIR33
BOOM138
MEGA888
CABE888
FOSIL777
turbospin138
KAPAKBET
SUPERJP
sultankoin99
dragon88
raffi888
kenzobet
aladin666
rgo365
ubm4d
GERCEP88
VIVA99
CR777
VOXY88
delman567
intan69
CABE888
RNR303
LOGO303
PEMBURUGACOR
mpo383
cermin4d
bm88
ANGKA79
WOWHOKI
ROKET303
MPOXL
GURITA168
SUPRASLOT
SGCWIN
DESA88
ARWANA388
DAUNEMAS
ALADDIN666
BIOWIN69
SKY77
DOTA88
NAGA138
API5000
y200m
PLAYBOOK88
LUXURY12
A200M
MPO700
KENANGAN4D
cakrabola
PANDAGENDUT
MARVEL77
UG300
HOKI178
MONTE77
JASABOLA
UNTAR4D
LIDO88
MAFIABOLA77
GASPOL189
mpo999
untung138
TW88
JAGUAR33
MPOBOS
SHIO88
VIVO4D
MPOXL
JARISAKTI
BBO303
AONCASH
ANGKER4D
LEVIS4D
JAGO88
REPUBLIK365
BOSDEAL88
BOLA168
akunjp
WARTEGBET
EZEBET
88PULSA
KITAB4D
BOSDEAL88
STUDIOBET
MESINKOIN
BIMA88
PPNUSA
ABGBET88
TOP77
BAYAR77
YES77
BBTN4D
BBCA4D
VSLOTS88
MPO800
PAHALA4D
KPI4D
JURAGAN77
QQ188
BOLAPELANGI
C200M
QQ998
GWKTOGEL
MEGABANDAR
COLOWIN
VIP579
SEVEN4D
MPO188
DEWATA88
SURAT4D
SINAR123
LAMBO77
GUDANG4D
AWAN4D
PLANETLIGA
GT88
ROYALSPIN88
MAMAJITU
MITO99
PEDIA4D
WIBU69JP
333HOKI
SIDARMA88
NAGAEMAS99
HOLA88
CAKAR76
KINGTOTO
RATUGAMING
SSI168
PILAR168
ACTOTO
EYANGTOGEL
KAISAR328
SLOT628
KAISAR88
DOTA88
MAXWIN369
ALIBABA99
MM168
SQUAD777
NAGABET88
JAYABOLA
SEMPATIGAME
PANDAJAGO
PIKAT4D
SINGA77
YUYU33
MASTERPLAY99
VICTORY39
NASA4D
PERMATA55
SAKAUSLOT
CK303
MPOTOWER
CIPUTRABET
WINJUDI
DEWI5000
IYA777
MAHIRTOTO
GOSLOT88
TIPTOP4D
RAJA787
JBO680
JOKER188
EPICPLAY88
TRIVABET
KAISAR189
JOKER81
JPSPIN88
MAYORA4D
DJARUMPLAY
OVO88
BAKTI78
WINGSLOT77
ICAFE4D
PDTOTO
JETPLAY88
CMBET88
CMBET88
didascaliasdelteatrocaminito.com
glenellynrent.com
gypsumboardequipment.com
realseller.org
https://harrysphone.com/upin
gyergyoalfalu.ro/tokek
vipokno.by/gokil
winjospg.com
winjos801.com/
www.logansquarerent.com
internationalfintech.com/bamsz
condowizard.ca
jawatoto889.com
hikaribet3.live
hikaribet1.com
heylink.me/hikaribet
www.nomadsumc.org
condowizard.ca/aromatoto
euro2024gol.com
www.imaracorp.com
daftarsekaibos.com
stuffyoucanuse.org/juragan
Toto Macau 4d
Aromatoto
Lippototo
Mbahtoto
Winjos
152.42.229.23
bandarlotre126.com
heylink.me/sekaipro
www.get-coachoutletsonline.com
wholesalejerseyslord.com
Lippototo
Zientoto
Lippototo
Situs Togel Resmi
Fajartoto
Situs Togel
Toto Macau
Winjos
Winlotre
Aromatoto
design-develop-test.com
winlotre.online
winlotre.xyz
winlotre.us
winlotrebandung.com
winlotrepalu.com
winlotresurabaya.shop
winlotrejakarta.com
winlotresemarang.shop
winlotrebali.shop
winlotreaceh.shop
winlotremakmur.com
Dadu Online
Taruhantoto
a Bandarlotre
bursaliga
lakitoto
aromatoto
Rebahin
untungslot.pages.dev
slotpoupler.pages.dev
rtpliveslot88a.pages.dev
tipsgameslot.pages.dev
pilihslot88.pages.dev
fortuertiger.pages.dev
linkp4d.pages.dev
linkslot88a.pages.dev
slotpgs8.pages.dev
markasjudi.pages.dev
saldo69.pages.dev
slotbenua.pages.dev
saingtoto.pages.dev
markastoto77.pages.dev
jowototo88.pages.dev
sungli78.pages.dev
volatilitas78.pages.dev
bonusbuy12.pages.dev
slotoffiline.pages.dev
dihindari77.pages.dev
rtpdislot1.pages.dev
agtslot77.pages.dev
congtoto15.pages.dev
hongkongtoto7.pages.dev
sinarmas177.pages.dev
hours771.pages.dev
sarana771.pages.dev
kananslot7.pages.dev
balitoto17.pages.dev
jowototo17.pages.dev
aromatotoding.com
unyagh.org
fairparkcounseling.com/gap/
impress-newtex.com/ajax/
SULTAN88
SULTANSLOT
RAJA328
JOIN88+
HOKIBET
GFC88
RusiaSlot88
Tahu69
BONANZA99
Pragmabet
mega55
luxury777
luxury333
borju89
qqgaming
KEDAI168
mega777
nagaslot777
TAKSU787
kkslot777
MAS77TOTO
BANDAR55+
BOS303
Login-HOKI99/
NUSA365
YUHUSLOT
ktp168
GALAXY138