O penAI’s debut of GPT-5 came with many promises of a smarter, more effective AI platform capable of fulfilling many of the dreams of AI enthusiasts. The company was so confident in GPT-5 that it became the default model for ChatGPT, while the previous flagship GPT-4o model was removed from the AI chatbot.

OpenAI has reinstated GPT-4o as a default model option for paid ChatGPT subscribers, reversing a controversial change made during last week’s release of GPT-5. CEO Sam Altman announced the GPT-4o move on Wednesday, along with other updates to the company’s AI chatbot.

OpenAI has walked back a controversial decision from last week that removed user access to older ChatGPT models when GPT-5 became the new default. Following a surge of complaints across forums and social media, legacy models like GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, o3, and o4-mini are once again available—but only for paid users who know where to look.

The return of GPT-4o comes after what Altman described as OpenAI underestimating "how much some of the things that people like in GPT-4o matter to them." In an attempt to simplify its offerings, OpenAI had initially removed all previous AI models from ChatGPT when GPT-5 launched on August 7,

GPT-5 was touted as a major upgrade to ChatGPT, but not everyone thinks that’s the case: “Kill 4o isn’t innovation, it’s erasure.”

OpenAI restores GPT-4o to the ChatGPT picker for paid users and promises advance notice on future deprecations.

OpenAI has brought GPT-4o back to ChatGPT after users complained about the large language model’s removal. OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman announced the move in a Tuesday post on X. He also detailed several other changes to ChatGPT,

OpenAI has updated the model picker for ChatGPT to reintroduce the GPT-4 model for all paid users. All users of the chatbot will also see new “Auto”, “Fast”, and “Thinking” options for GPT-5.