OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman is publicly acknowledging main hiccups in yesterday’s rollout of GPT-5, the corporate’s new, flagship giant language mannequin (LLM) — marketed as its strongest and succesful but.
Answering consumer questions in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Something) thread and in a publish on X this afternoon, Altman admitted to a spread of points which have disrupted the launch of GPT-5, together with defective mannequin switching, poor efficiency, and consumer confusion — prompting OpenAI to partially stroll again a few of its platform adjustments and reinstate consumer entry to earlier fashions like GPT-4o.
“It was a little more bumpy than we hoped for,” Altman wrote in reply to a query on Reddit concerning the massive GPT-5 launch.
As for inaccurate mannequin efficiency charts proven off throughout OpenAI’s GPT-5 livestream, Altman mentioned: “People were working late and were very tired, and human error got in the way. A lot comes together for a livestream in the last hours.”
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Whereas he famous the accompanying weblog publish and system card had been correct, the missteps additional muddied a launch already dealing with scrutiny from early customers and builders.
GPT-5 rollout updates:
*We’re going to double GPT-5 fee limits for ChatGPT Plus customers as we end rollout.
*We’ll let Plus customers select to proceed to make use of 4o. We’ll watch utilization as we take into consideration how lengthy to supply legacy fashions for.
*GPT-5 will appear smarter beginning…
— Sam Altman (@sama) August 8, 2025
Issues with new computerized mannequin router
One key motive for the difficulty in accordance with Altman stems from OpenAI’s new computerized “router” that assigns consumer prompts to one in all 4 GPT-5 variants — common, mini, nano, and professional — with an non-obligatory “thinking” mode for heavier reasoning duties.
On X, Altman revealed {that a} key a part of that system — the autoswitcher — was “out of commission for a chunk of the day,” inflicting GPT-5 to seem “way dumber” than meant.
In response, OpenAI says it’s implementing adjustments to the mannequin choice boundary and can make it extra clear which mannequin is responding to a given question.
A UI replace can also be on the best way to assist customers manually set off pondering mode.
Moreover, Altman confirmed that OpenAI will now enable ChatGPT Plus customers to proceed utilizing GPT-4o — the prior default mannequin — after a wave of complaints about GPT-5’s inconsistent efficiency. He mentioned on Reddit the corporate is “trying to gather more data on the tradeoffs” earlier than deciding how lengthy to supply legacy fashions.
But many customers together with OpenAI beta testers like Wharton College of Enterprise professor Ethan Mollick expressed confused and dismay at OpenAI unilaterally upgrading their ChatGPT experiences to GPT-5 and initially taking away entry to the older fashions.
Actual-world efficiency lags behind hype
OpenAI’s inner benchmarks might present GPT-5 main the pack of LLMs, however real-world customers are sharing a distinct expertise.
Because the launch, customers have posted quite a few examples of GPT-5 making primary errors in math, logic, and coding duties.
Information scientist Colin Fraser posted screenshots of GPT-5 incorrectly fixing whether or not 8.888 repeating equals 9 (it doesn’t, clearly), whereas one other consumer confirmed it flubbing a easy algebra downside: 5.9 = x + 5.11.
And nonetheless different customers reported bother getting correct solutions to math phrase issues or utilizing GPT-5 to debug its personal presentation charts.
Developer suggestions hasn’t been significantly better, with customers posting pictures of GPT faring worse at “one-shot” sure programming duties — finishing them properly with a single-prompt — in comparison with rival AI lab Anthropic’s new mannequin Claude Opus 4.1.
And safety agency SPLX discovered GPT-5 nonetheless suffers from critical vulnerabilities to immediate injection and obfuscated logic assaults except its security layer is hardened.
OpenAI within the highlight
With 700 million weekly customers on ChatGPT, OpenAI stays the most important participant in generative AI by viewers.
However that scale has introduced rising pains. Altman famous in his X publish that API visitors doubled over 24 hours following the GPT-5 launch, contributing to platform instability.
In response, OpenAI says it is going to double fee limits for ChatGPT Plus customers, and proceed to tweak infrastructure because it gathers suggestions.
However the early missteps — compounded by complicated UX adjustments and errors in a high-profile launch — have opened a window for rivals to achieve floor.
The strain is on for OpenAI to show that GPT-5 isn’t simply an incremental replace, however a real step ahead. Primarily based on the preliminary rollout, many customers aren’t satisfied — but.
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