OpenAI to Retire GPT-4o and Other Legacy AI Models in ChatGPT in February

OpenAI announced the retirement date for several legacy artificial intelligence (AI) models in ChatGPT. Most notable in the list is the GPT-4o, which has already survived one sunset attempt. In August 2025, the San Francisco-based AI giant tried to retire the model after introducing GPT-5, but many users protested, highlighting that the newer model lacked the emotional nuance and writing sophistication of the legacy model. As a result, the model was reinstated. However, the company now believes the newer AI models offer similar capabilities, and the user base continuing with GPT-4o has shrunken significantly.

GPT-4o Gets a Retirement Date

In a post, the AI giant announced that on February 13, GPT-4o and several other AI models will be retired from ChatGPT. These include GPT-5 Instant, GPT-5 Thinking, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and o4-mini. This change is only applicable to ChatGPT, with the OpenAI application programming interface (API) continuing to get unchanged access to the legacy models.

OpenAI gave a special mention to GPT-4o while making the announcement. This is likely because, in the past, a portion of the user base protested when the company tried to retire the model. Now, it claims to have learned more about how people used the model and brought these capabilities to GPT-5.2.

Some of these improvements include fine-tuning the personality, adding support for creative ideation, and customisation tools. Users can now select from multiple preset base styles to change the way the chatbot responds. Additionally, markers such as warmth and enthusiasm can also be adjusted. Notably, OpenAI added that only 0.1 percent of users still choose GPT-4o each day.

Several users have expressed frustrations over this decision on social media platforms. One user on X (formerly known as Twitter), Claire (@Claire20250311), argued against the 0.1 percent data shown by OpenAI and said, “Ever since GPT-5.2 became the default, most users naturally follow the path of least resistance. 4o requires a paid subscription to even access, and you use safety routing to interrupt conversations with it at will[..]And your decision is an invitation for us to leave ChatGPT.”

Another user, @Clo0oOoud, said, “OpenAI claims only "0.1% of users" are still choosing GPT-4o. Yet here are 10K posts trending in just a few hours.”

Interestingly, earlier this week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted during the company's inaugural town hall that with GPT-5.2, the writing performance had declined as the focus was shifted to coding, reasoning, and mathematics.