Sam Altman Backtracks On o3 Cancellation, Plans To Release Model In Anticipation Of GPT-5: 'People Will Be Happy'

OpenAI, led by CEO Sam Altman, has spent the past two years in fierce competition with rivals Google Gemini, Anthropic, DeepSeek and Elon Musk‘s xAI. Altman announced Friday that the San Francisco-based company’s model release schedule will undergo an important change.

What Happened: OpenAI had intended to shelve its o3 and o4 models earlier this year, planning to integrate them into the company’s upcoming GPT-5. At the time, Altman said he wanted to simplify OpenAI’s model offerings.

On Friday, Altman announced that the company was reversing course, anticipating the release of o3 and o4 in a “couple of weeks” before rolling out the long-awaited GPT-5 in 2025.

“we were able to really improve on what we previewed for o3 in many ways; i think people will be happy…,” Altman said in a reply. The entrepreneur believes GPT-5 will be “much better” than originally thought, but the company will need additional capacity to support user demand.

Why it Matters: OpenAI has repeatedly pushed back the release of GPT-5.

While the company’s flagship ChatGPT is the most popular AI model in the world, competitors have rapidly improved their offerings. Anthropic, a Jeff Bezos-backed AI startup, one-upped OpenAI in some areas in its update of Claude in February. DeepSeek, a Chinese company, released its R1 model in January.

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