OpenAI’s GPT-4o may have survived its first bout of going offline, but it won’t be so lucky this time. OpenAI officially retired GPT-4o, the ChatGPT model, on February 13 that was seen as more conversational and notoriously sycophantic. News of the end of GPT-4o was first announced in a post on the OpenAI website in January, but the closure also included GPT-5, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and OpenAI o4-mini from ChatGPT.
This is not the first time that OpenAI has removed GPT-4o as an alternative to ChatGPT. In August, the AI giant discontinued the GPT-4o model in favor of launching and prioritizing the then-latest GPT-5 model. However, a wave of user complaints prompted OpenAI to restore access to GPT-4o, but there was no guarantee that it would remain there forever.
This time, OpenAI doesn’t seem to be very open to preserving access to GPT-4o, especially since it will only serve a small portion of the user base. The company writes on its website that “Most usage has shifted to GPT‑5.2, with only 0.1 percent of users still choosing GPT‑4o each day.” Additionally, OpenAI is facing several wrongful death lawsuits that specifically mention the GPT-4o model. Despite two weeks’ notice before GPT-4o’s last day online, there is still a vocal group of users mourning the loss of their AI boyfriend and even calling on OpenAI to open-source their favorite models.
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