ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users.
2024 was a big year for OpenAI, from its partnership with Apple for its generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, the release of GPT-4o with voice capabilities, and the highly-anticipated launch of its text-to-video model Sora.
OpenAI also faced its share of internal drama, including the notable exits of high-level execs like co-founder and longtime chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and CTO Mira Murati. OpenAI has also been hit with lawsuits from Alden Global Capital-owned newspapers alleging copyright infringement, as well as an injunction from Elon Musk to halt OpenAI’s transition to a for-profit.
In 2025, OpenAI is battling the perception that it’s ceding ground in the AI race to Chinese rivals like DeepSeek. The company has been trying to shore up its relationship with Washington as it simultaneously pursues an ambitious data center project, and as it reportedly lays the groundwork for one of the largest funding rounds in history.
Below, you’ll find a timeline of ChatGPT product updates and releases, starting with the latest, which we’ve been updating throughout the year. If you have any other questions, check out our ChatGPT FAQ here.
To see a list of 2024 updates, go here.
Timeline of the most recent ChatGPT updates
April 2025
OpenAI wants its AI model to access cloud models for assistance
OpenAI leaders have been talking about allowing the open model to link up with OpenAI’s cloud-hosted models to improve its ability to respond to intricate questions, two sources familiar with the situation told TechCrunch.
OpenAI aims to make its new “open” AI model the best on the market
OpenAI is preparing to launch an AI system that will be openly accessible, allowing users to download it for free without any API restrictions. Aidan Clark, OpenAI’s VP of research, is spearheading the development of the open model, which is in the very early stages, sources familiar with the situation told TechCrunch.
OpenAI’s GPT-4.1 may be less aligned than earlier models
OpenAI released a new AI model called GPT-4.1 in mid-April. However, multiple independent tests indicate that the model is less reliable than previous OpenAI releases. The company skipped that step — sending safety cards for GPT-4.1 — claiming in a statement to TechCrunch that “GPT-4.1 is not a frontier model, so there won’t be a separate system card released for it.”
OpenAI’s o3 AI model scored lower than expected on a benchmark
Questions have been raised regarding OpenAI’s transparency and procedures for testing models after a difference in benchmark outcomes was detected by first- and third-party benchmark results for the o3 AI model. OpenAI introduced o3 in December, stating that the model could solve approximately 25% of questions on FrontierMath, a difficult math problem set. Epoch AI, the research institute behind FrontierMath, discovered that o3 achieved a score of approximately 10%, which was significantly lower than OpenAI’s top-reported score.
OpenAI unveils Flex processing for cheaper, slower AI tasks
OpenAI has launched a new API feature called Flex processing that allows users to use AI models at a lower cost but with slower response times and occasional resource unavailability. Flex processing is available in beta on the o3 and o4-mini reasoning models for non-production tasks like model evaluations, data enrichment, and …