By Anna Tong
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -OpenAI launched on Thursday its GPT-5 artificial intelligence model, the highly anticipated latest installment of a technology that has helped transform global business and culture.
OpenAI’s GPT models are the AI technology that powers the popular ChatGPT chatbot, and GPT-5 will be available to all 700 million ChatGPT users, OpenAI said.
The big question is whether the company that kicked off the generative AI frenzy will be capable of continuing to drive significant technological advancements that attract enterprise-level users to justify the enormous sums of money it is investing to fuel these developments.
The release comes at a critical time for the AI industry. The world’s biggest AI developers – Alphabet, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft, which backs OpenAI – have dramatically increased capital expenditures to pay for AI data centers, nourishing investor hopes for great returns. These four companies expect to spend nearly $400 billion this fiscal year in total.
OpenAI is now in early discussions to allow employees to cash out at a $500 billion valuation, a huge step-up from its current $300 billion valuation. Top AI researchers now command $100 million signing bonuses.
“So far, business spending on AI has been pretty weak, while consumer spending on AI has been fairly robust because people love to chat with ChatGPT,” said economics writer Noah Smith. “But the consumer spending on AI just isn’t going to be nearly enough to justify all the money that is being spent on AI data centers.”
OpenAI is emphasizing GPT-5’s enterprise prowess. In addition to software development, the company said GPT-5 excels in writing, health-related queries, and finance.
“GPT-5 is really the first time that I think one of our mainline models has felt like you can ask a legitimate expert, a PhD-level expert, anything,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said at a press briefing.
“One of the coolest things it can do is write you good instantaneous software. This idea of software on demand is going to be one of the defining features of the GPT-5 era.”
One key measure of success is whether the step up from GPT-4 to GPT-5 is on par with the research lab’s previous improvements. Two early reviewers told Reuters that while the new model impressed them with its ability to code and solve science and math problems, they believe the leap from the GPT-4 to GPT-5 was not as large as OpenAI’s prior improvements.
MORE THINKING
Nearly three years ago, ChatGPT introduced the world to generative AI, dazzling users with its ability to write humanlike prose and poetry, quickly becoming one of the fastest growing apps ever.
