The pace of generative AI has accelerated again in 2025. OpenAI’s release of GPT-5 in early August has changed both the model lineup and how everyday and professional users experience ChatGPT. This article offers a rigorous, current comparison between ChatGPT-4 (including the GPT-4o “Omni” generation) and ChatGPT-5. It covers capabilities, modes and architecture, accuracy and safety, multimodality, developer and enterprise considerations, availability and user reception, and practical guidance on which model to choose for specific scenarios. Where relevant, we cite primary announcements and respected tech media so you can verify details and track ongoing changes.
Executive summary
ChatGPT-5 is OpenAI’s newest flagship model. It raises the ceiling on reasoning, coding, writing and health-related assistance, adds selectable “thinking” modes, and introduces a router that chooses when to think longer on complex prompts. It is now offered to all ChatGPT users, with limits for free accounts. However, the rollout generated mixed reactions: many users praised the intelligence gains while others missed GPT-4o’s warmer tone, which led OpenAI to restore older models for paying users and promise better change management. For most professional use cases in August 2025, GPT-5 is the better default when depth, accuracy signals and complex multi-step tasks matter. GPT-4o remains attractive for real-time, multimodal, and conversational experiences that benefit from its responsive “feel.”
What exactly are we comparing?
When people say “ChatGPT-4,” they often mean more than one thing. The 2024 “GPT-4o” upgrade delivered strong real-time multimodal performance across text, vision and audio, and it became the everyday engine for many ChatGPT conversations. Separately, there were GPT-4 Turbo variants in the API. In August 2025, “ChatGPT-5” refers to the new GPT-5 family surfaced inside ChatGPT with two relevant modes for end users: the standard GPT-5 and the higher-deliberation GPT-5 Thinking. Under the hood, GPT-5 can automatically switch into deeper reasoning when your prompt requires it.
Release timing and availability
OpenAI announced GPT-5 on August 7, 2025, positioning it as a broadly smarter, faster and more useful model. Within days, GPT-5 became available to all ChatGPT users, including free users, though free usage invokes caps and can route to lighter variants after a threshold. As of August 13, 2025, GPT-5 is also appearing across developer surfaces such as GitHub Copilot in popular IDEs in public preview.
Architecture and modes: how GPT-5 “thinks” differently
A defining change with GPT-5 is the move toward flexible inference. In ChatGPT, you can pick GPT-5 or GPT-5 Thinking. Even when you choose GPT-5, an internal system decides whether to use a faster chat path or escalate to a deeper “Thinking” path for complex prompts. This staging aims to balance speed and depth automatically, while still giving you control to lock in deliberate reasoning for hard problems. Public documentation and coverage also describe user-visible modes labelled Auto, Fast, and Thinking on some clients, coupled with increased message limits for Plus users.
For teams that build prompts and workflows, the practical implication is that GPT-5 can spend more compute when necessary. For everyday writing, summaries and simple Q&A, Fast or the standard GPT-5 path will usually suffice. For multi-constraint tasks such as drafting policy with statutory citations, translating requirements into robust code stubs with tests, or stepwise problem solving in math and analytics, GPT-5 Thinking is engineered to do more reasoning before responding. That said, deeper modes are slower. Plan for that latency trade-off when you wire GPT-5 into production flows.
Capabilities: where GPT-5 improves on GPT-4 and GPT-4o
OpenAI claims GPT-5 delivers meaningful advances in three common uses: writing, coding and health. Writing improvements are visible in instruction following, reduction in sycophancy and more consistent structure for long-form outputs. Coding gains show up in tasks like reading unfamiliar codebases, inferring missing context, and generating test-ready scaffolds. Health-related assistance sees tighter guardrails and better retrieval of clinically grounded information, although ChatGPT remains a general-purpose assistant and not a medical device. Across domains, OpenAI also emphasises reduced hallucinations. These are vendor claims, but they square with early hands-on impressions and the re-tooling of rate limits and modes to support heavier reasoning.
By contrast, GPT-4o’s standout strength has been its responsiveness in real-time, multimodal conversations. It can listen, look and speak with low latency, and it was optimised to feel natural in back-and-forth dialogue, live translation, image explanation and quick ideation. GPT-4o also held a cost-performance advantage in the API era, which is why many production chat front-ends and voice agents standardised on it throughout 2024 and early 2025. Even today, many users describe GPT-4o’s conversational “warmth” as preferable to GPT-5’s more analytical tone, though OpenAI is iterating GPT-5’s personality.
Accuracy, safety and hallucination control
GPT-5 introduces changes intended to reduce unsupported claims and refusal errors. OpenAI’s announcement highlights improved instruction following and fewer hallucinations. Early reporting also notes new “thinking” pathways that allow the model to apply more internal reasoning on difficult tasks, which correlates with better factuality in structured assessments. However, the rollout has not been flawless. Coverage in respected outlets documents inconsistency during the first week, in part due to model routing decisions, and mixed user sentiment about tone and reliability. As always, mission-critical deployments should measure performance on your own evals and watch for regressions as OpenAI continues hot-fixes.
Multimodality: real-time voice and vision today
GPT-4o remains a reference point for real-time multimodality. It can reason across audio, vision and text in near real-time and was marketed as able to perceive and converse fluidly. GPT-5 inherits and extends multimodal understanding, but its headline innovations are in reasoning control and instruction-following rather than a radical change to the “listen-see-speak” stack that GPT-4o popularised. If your workflow is dominated by voice agents, live translators or on-device conversations where latency dominates, GPT-4o still deserves consideration. If your workflow is dominated by complex synthesis of multimodal information under constraints, GPT-5’s deliberation options may tip the balance.
Developer and enterprise integration
For builders, two signals matter this week. First, GitHub has lit up GPT-5 in public preview inside Copilot across major IDEs, which suggests rapid adoption in coding environments. Second, OpenAI’s developer note emphasises better tool use, more stable agent behaviour and stronger performance on agentic tasks, along with early partner testimonials across consumer and enterprise apps. If you ship assistants that call tools, browse or orchestrate multi-step jobs, GPT-5’s steerability and the ability to switch into Thinking mode are valuable. Teams should run side-by-side evals on representative tasks and measure latency, correctness and cost.
Availability, model line-up and user choice
The initial launch placed GPT-5 as the default for many ChatGPT users, including a path for free users subject to a hidden cap that falls back to lighter variants. The change prompted backlash from power users who preferred 4o’s tone, leading OpenAI to restore access to GPT-4o and other legacy options for paying users and to pledge not to remove older models without notice. Media reports also cite increased message limits for Plus subscribers and new personality controls within GPT-5. This matters for organisations that standardised on 4o and want time to migrate. The pragmatic takeaway is that, as of August 13, 2025, you can choose between GPT-5 and GPT-4o in paid ChatGPT plans, while GPT-5 is broadly available with guardrails for free users.
User reception: warmth versus horsepower
User response has been nuanced. Reporting highlights that many valued GPT-4o’s warmth and conversational empathy and perceived GPT-5 as more clinical during the first week. OpenAI leadership publicly acknowledged this gap and committed to tuning GPT-5’s personality without returning to what they described as 4o’s “sycophancy.” Meanwhile, aggregate usage rose after launch, suggesting that raw capability gains are compelling for many tasks, but expectations around tone, predictability and change management are now central to adoption.
Side-by-side, task-by-task: which model should you choose?
For research-grade writing and editing where citations, structure and consistency matter, GPT-5 is the stronger choice. It follows complex instructions more reliably, holds multi-step constraints better and can be asked to “think longer” where needed. For example, legal or policy drafting with jurisdiction-specific clauses, grant proposals with tight formatting, or medical literature triage for clinicians benefit from GPT-5’s deliberate reasoning. These are exactly the domains OpenAI highlighted in its launch note. OpenAI
For coding, GPT-5’s gains show up in tasks like refactoring across modules, generating tests aligned with coverage targets, and translating problem statements into functionally correct scaffolds with better tool-calling discipline. Early IDE integrations in Copilot accelerate this migration path. Teams should still benchmark latency and throughput under load, but the net improvement in correctness makes GPT-5 the default pick for complex engineering prompts.
For live support, voice agents and interactive education where the “feel” of the conversation matters, GPT-4o deserves a serious look. Its low latency and strong audio-vision handling can outweigh modest reasoning gains, especially in concierge-style experiences, language practice and accessibility tools. Many organisations will run a hybrid: GPT-4o for real-time conversational front ends, GPT-5 for heavy reasoning and generation behind the scenes.
For data-sensitive deployments, both models live within ChatGPT’s standard privacy framework. GPT-5’s stronger instruction-following can reduce leakage from misinterpreted prompts, but you should not treat either model as a system of record. Use retrieval to separate sensitive facts from generation and keep humans in the loop for regulated outputs. If you are building a public-facing property, publish and maintain a clear privacy policy. You can review ours at Latestt.in’s Privacy Policy for a template adapted to media sites. [/privacy-policy]
Practical guidance for teams and creators
First, evaluate against your own test sets. If you have prompts where GPT-4o already meets satisfaction thresholds, a forced migration is unnecessary. If you have prompts that bump into reasoning limits, GPT-5 often clears them when you allow Thinking mode. Build A/B tracks with the same content pipeline and log not only correctness but revision counts and time-to-final.
Second, design your UX to make model choice an explicit control. For example, a content studio can default to GPT-5 for briefs and long drafts, but let creators switch to GPT-4o for voice-over scripts, live ideation and quick thumbnails. Capture which model was used for which section so your editorial analytics reflect the true cost and quality mix.
Third, plan for change management. The first week of GPT-5 showed that unannounced removals of familiar models break user trust. Document your internal policy for model upgrades, announce cutover dates to stakeholders and maintain a rollback route. OpenAI has publicly promised better notice for deprecations, but your own product governance should not rely solely on vendor communications. e Verge
Fourth, mind tone and brand voice. If your audience prefers warmth, tune GPT-5 with system prompts and few-shot examples that emphasise empathy and clarity. OpenAI has also indicated it is actively adjusting GPT-5’s personality, and media coverage notes that more customisation is on the way. Until then, enforce your tone programmatically and use review checklists for sensitive copy.
Fifth, set expectations where safety meets capability. GPT-5 may refuse more edge requests than 4o in some domains or spend extra time “thinking” on complex ones, which changes the user’s felt speed. Explain why a slower, more deliberate answer may be worth it for high-stakes tasks, and give users an escape hatch to a faster path when depth is overkill.
A concise comparison table for decision-makers
| Category | ChatGPT-4o / “ChatGPT-4” context | ChatGPT-5 context |
|---|---|---|
| Release and status | GPT-4o announced May 2024; became the day-to-day model for many users, valued for responsiveness and “warmth” | GPT-5 announced August 7, 2025; available to all ChatGPT users, with caps for free accounts |
| Modes | No user-selectable reasoning modes in ChatGPT client | Auto, Fast and Thinking paths surfaced; can auto-switch to deeper “Thinking” for complex prompts |
| Reasoning depth | Strong but often less consistent on multi-constraint tasks | Higher consistency on complex, multi-step tasks; improved instruction following and fewer hallucinations |
| Multimodality | Real-time voice and vision with low latency; natural conversational feel | Strong multimodality, emphasis on reasoning control rather than latency breakthroughs |
| Coding | Good code suggestions and repairs | Improved tool use and agentic tasks; early IDE support in Copilot preview |
| Tone and reception | Perceived as warmer and more empathetic | Initially perceived as more clinical; currently being tuned toward warmer output |
| Availability of older models | Restored for paid users after backlash | Default flagship; still evolving with hot-fixes and personality updates |
| Best-fit examples | Live support, teaching, language practice, quick creative ideation | Legal and policy drafting, technical writing, complex coding, structured analysis |
Context from media coverage: what changed in the first week
Reputable outlets have chronicled the bumpy start. Reports note that routing between model paths contributed to inconsistent behaviour for some users, while the replacement of 4o as the default triggered frustration among those who valued its tone. In response, OpenAI restored older models for paid users, increased message limits for Plus subscribers and publicly committed to advance notice before removing models in the future. The company has also said it is actively making GPT-5 “warmer” without recreating behaviours it previously criticised in 4o. If your teams noticed swings in style or performance in the past few days, those were real and are being addressed.
Recommendations for Latestt.in readers and newsroom workflows
If you are a writer or editor producing long-form content with sources, prefer GPT-5. Ask it to “think longer” on sections where structure and factual fidelity matter, such as intros, executive summaries, and methodology. Use GPT-4o for headline brainstorming, voice-over scripts, and rapid image-caption pairs, where timing and conversational tone can be more important than deep reasoning. If you operate a multitopic publication like Latestt.in, consider a two-lane workflow in your CMS: one lane defaults to GPT-5 Thinking for feature pieces and explainers, the other lane defaults to GPT-4o for live blogs, short updates and social copy. Build your own style-constrained prompts into templates to keep tone consistent across both models.
On the technical side, if you run internal tools or a content API, add observability around model choice, latency and revision cycles so you can decide whether GPT-5’s improved accuracy offsets any speed cost for your team. If your site depends on accessibility, GPT-4o’s speech and vision responsiveness can improve your audio descriptions and alt-text drafts, but treat them as drafts. Keep a human in the loop and refer back to our Privacy Policy when handling user-submitted media. [/privacy-policy]
External references and further reading
For ongoing verification, prioritise OpenAI’s official posts for primary claims about features and capabilities, and cross-check with respected tech media for deployment details, user sentiment and policy clarifications. We have linked to both types of sources throughout this article so you can triangulate your own view as GPT-5 stabilises post-launch.
Conclusion
If you need one model today for professional, high-stakes work, pick GPT-5 and enable deliberate reasoning when appropriate. If you are optimising for human-like conversation and live multimodal interactions, keep GPT-4o in your toolkit. Expect GPT-5 to keep receiving hot-fixes that make it warmer and more predictable; expect OpenAI to avoid sudden deprecations; and expect the router and mode system to mature as usage patterns emerge. For teams building on ChatGPT, the safest posture is dual-track: GPT-5 for depth, GPT-4o for feel. That balance gives you resilience while the ecosystem continues to move quickly.
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Sources cited in this comparison
If you want to explore more about ChatGPT-4, ChatGPT-5, and OpenAI’s latest advancements, here are some trusted sources:
- OpenAI – GPT-5 Launch Announcement & Developer Notes – Official release blog detailing GPT-5’s new features, reasoning improvements, and mode options.
- OpenAI – GPT-4o Announcement – Introduction of the GPT-4o model with real-time multimodal capabilities.
- OpenAI Help Center – GPT-5 Modes & “Thinking” Guidance – Documentation on how to use GPT-5’s Auto, Fast, and Thinking modes effectively.
- The Verge – GPT-5 Release & Feature Overview – News coverage of GPT-5’s rollout, capabilities, and impact on the ChatGPT experience.
- TechRadar – GPT-5 Upgrades & User Options – Analysis of GPT-5’s mode features, user backlash, and OpenAI’s response.
- Business Insider – GPT-5 Personality Tuning Insights – Report on efforts to make GPT-5’s responses warmer and more human-like.
- El País Cinco Días – GPT-4o Restored for Paid Users – Coverage of OpenAI’s decision to bring back GPT-4o after user demand.
- Fortune – GPT-5 Router System & User Backlash – Insight into GPT-5’s routing architecture and mixed public reception.
- The Wall Street Journal – GPT-5 Rollout & Market Impact – Industry analysis on GPT-5’s release and competitive implications.
- Ars Technica – GPT-5 Performance & Accuracy Claims – Technical breakdown of GPT-5’s reasoning, safety features, and early benchmarks.