At the time, users complained that newer models were missing GPT-4o's emotional nuance and writing. Now, OpenAI says the newer models offer comparable capabilities, and also the daily usage of GPT-4o has fallen.

GPT-4o Retirement Date Confirmed

On 29 January, OpenAI announced in a blog post that they are retiring GPT-4o (along with the models GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and OpenAI o4-mini). OpenAI specified that the majority of the models below will be taken down from ChatGPT on February 13th:

- GPT-4o

- GPT-5 Instant

- GPT-5 Thinking

- GPT-4.1

- GPT-4.1 mini

- o4-mini

This is a breaking change just for ChatGPT. Access to the models via the OpenAI API will not change.

Why OpenAI Is Retiring GPT-4o

OpenAI did not include some idiomatic language from the world of competitive typing that would have diluted GPT-40's bias toward text about keyboards. 2. Improvements include:

- Personality fine-tuning

- Creative ideation support

- Customisation tools

- Preset response styles

- Adjustable warmth and enthusiasm levels

According to OpenAI, only 0.1 per cent of users now choose GPT-4o daily.

User Backlash on Social Media

Some users asked about OpenAI's usage stats. One X user, Claire (@Claire20250311), said usage of GPT-4o had fallen largely as a result of GPT-5. 2 was moved to the default, and the GPT-4o is pay-to-use. A different user, @Clo0oOoud, noted that the thousands of trending posts are evidence of more interest than OpenAI would lead users to believe.

Writing Quality Concerns

Earlier this week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman hinted at the possibility of GPT-5. As feature development priorities shifted in favour of coding, reasoning, and math for GPT-2, we also offended many users by neglecting GPT-2o's strengths for writing performance.