OpenAI Rolls Out ChatGPT-5 for Free to All Users
OpenAI has officially launched ChatGPT-5, making it free for all users of the popular AI tool, which now serves nearly 700 million people every week.
Co-founder and CEO Sam Altman hailed the update as “clearly a model that is generally intelligent,” calling it a major leap forward in AI capability. However, he emphasized that it’s still not the elusive artificial general intelligence (AGI) that can think exactly like humans.
“It’s not a model that continuously learns from new information in real time — something I believe should be part of true AGI — but the improvement here is huge,” Altman noted.
From High School to PhD-Level Expertise
Altman compared the AI’s evolution over the years:
GPT-3: Like talking to a high school student — sometimes right, sometimes wildly off.
GPT-4: Like chatting with a college student.
GPT-5: The first version that “really feels like talking to a PhD-level expert on any topic.”
Michelle Pokrass from the development team highlighted GPT-5’s strength as an autonomous “agent” — capable of independently handling computer tasks.
The “Vibe-Coding” Era
One standout feature, according to Altman, is “vibe-coding” — the ability to create software on demand simply by describing what you want. In one demo, ChatGPT-5 built a French-learning app in real time.
OpenAI says the model leads the industry in coding, writing, health care, and more — outpacing rivals like Google and Microsoft, both of which are investing billions into AI.
Built for Safety and Trust
Alex Beutel, OpenAI’s safety research lead, said GPT-5 was trained to be honest, safe, and resistant to harmful uses.
“We built evaluations to measure deception and trained the model to be truthful,” Beutel explained.
The AI is designed to give only high-level, non-harmful information — even when asked tricky questions.
US Government Gets Enterprise Access
The launch comes just a day after OpenAI announced a partnership with the US General Services Administration, giving federal workers in the executive branch one year of free ChatGPT Enterprise access — normally a premium product.
Open-Weight Models Released
In another major move, OpenAI released two open-weight language models — gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b — which users can download and modify for free. The release is seen as a response to growing pressure for the company to be more transparent about its technology.
Altman hinted that the journey toward AGI is far from over:
“There are orders of magnitude more gains to come. Of course, that requires massive investment in computing power — and we intend to keep doing it.”
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