OpenAI Unveils GPT-4.5: A Step Forward or a Placeholder for GPT-5?

News 07 Mar 2025

OpenAI conducted the official launch of GPT-4.5 as the newest variant of its large language model (LLM) family. GPT-4.5 represents OpenAI’s closing appearance as a non-chain-of-thought model because future versions will focus on reasoning functions.

The white paper released by OpenAI shows that GPT-4.5 provides better user interaction methods, enhanced emotional understanding capabilities, and improved understanding of user intentions. GPT-4.5 increases problem-solving abilities, reduces hallucinations, and offers extensive knowledge coverage to excel at writing and programming tasks.

A Delayed GPT-5?

GPT-4.5 was released into the market as OpenAI postponed the planned release of GPT-5. Industry sources believe OpenAI is encountering diminishing progress on model upgrades since scaling rules no longer ensure better results from increased computational power and larger datasets.

In the demonstration phase, the open AI team explained that GPT-4.5 does not have reasoning-first capabilities yet maintains superior problem-solving capabilities and knowledge comprehension. The “O” series from OpenAI functions for scientific and mathematical reasoning, yet GPT-4.5 is a general-purpose artificial intelligence solution.

The organization OpenAI has released multiple reasoning-focused models during the previous year through their o1, o3-mini, and o3-mini-high products. Internal shifts toward real-time computation power over big-pretraining processes may explain the delay in delivering GPT-5 despite prevalent speculations about its arrival. The OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicted GPT-5 would surpass his own intelligence level, and the former CTO Mira Murati applied a Ph.D.-level description to it.

Was GPT-4.5 Supposed to Be GPT-5?

Within the OpenAI organization, details suggest that Orion codebase was planned as the foundation for GPT-5 until performance goals were unmet. According to internal sources at OpenAI, the new version number could not be justified because the system missed its performance targets. Altman reassured the public about GPT-5, which he expects to launch soon.

How to Access GPT-4.5

Users who want to experience GPT-4.5 must become Pro subscribers of ChatGPT. Only subscribers who pay $200 per month for ChatGPT Pro can currently access the model. Next week marks the date when ChatGPT Plus subscribers will obtain access to GPT-4.5, yet the change in OpenAI subscription ranks generates doubts among pay-20-month subscribers regarding their continued commitment.

OpenAI’s efforts to drive Pro subscriptions lead to possible dissatisfaction among loyal users because competition is intensifying. AI models from xAI with Grok 3, DeepSeek R1, and Anthropic Claude 3.7 Sonnet develop their competitive edge against the offerings from OpenAI.

What’s Next?

GPT-4.5’s release serves as both a milestone and a question mark. Does OpenAI intend to create GPT-5 through this development or does it need this milestone to improve its AI scaling methodology? Future months will show if GPT-4.5 realizes its initial prospects or acts as a temporary stopgap solution before significant breakthroughs occur.

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