I predicted GPT‑5 before it went live; now it’s here, and the dev world can’t stop talking. Let’s unpack what was a hit, what tanked, and why half of us are emotional.
Let’s not pretend we weren’t all watching the GPT‑5 countdown like gamers waiting for a patch that might break the meta. Some expected AGI. Others expected a fancier GPT‑4. And then there were people like me devs neck-deep in rumors, leak threads, and speculative docs trying to predict what the hell OpenAI would actually ship.
I even wrote a full article before the launch:
GPT-5 is coming here’s everything leaking before the launch
Rumors, Reddit posts, dev logs, and OpenAI’s silence all point to one thing: something massive is about to drop.
medium.com
Now that GPT‑5 is officially out, I’ve got some things to say. Some of my predictions hit the mark. Some didn’t even make it to the same sport. And then OpenAI pulled a wild move: they dropped multiple variants, slashed costs, and quietly killed off GPT‑4o the one model the community actually felt emotionally attached to.
So yeah, this isn’t just another AI upgrade. It’s a shift in the entire dev-AI relationship. In this article, we’ll dig into what GPT‑5 really is, how it differs from the hype, and why half the devs on X (Twitter?) are excited while the other half are grieving.
TL;DR:
- Yes, I called the multimodal features, longer context, and dev tooling focus.
- But I didn’t expect the 90% price drop, 4o’s death, or four model variants.
- The dev community is still mourning GPT‑4o like it was a fallen teammate.
- GPT‑5 isn’t just better it’s different. Faster, deeper, maybe colder?
- Here’s what changed, what stayed, and what we can now build.
Table of Contents:
- GPT‑5: What we expected vs what we got
- Dev emotions: GPT‑4o is gone, and people are not okay
- What GPT‑5 unlocks for developers
- What’s next: GPT‑5.5? GPT‑6? Open agents?
- Final thoughts
1. GPT‑5 What we expected vs what we got
Back in the rumor-fueled pre-launch chaos, I wrote this:
GPT‑5 is coming: here’s everything leaking before the launch
I threw out some high-confidence guesses based on leaked docs, Reddit speculation, and a few spicy Twitter threads. Turns out? Some of those predictions held up. Others… aged like milk. And some new stuff landed that no one saw coming including OpenAI quietly assassinating GPT‑4o.
Let’s break it down like real devs do: prediction-by-prediction.
Multimodal input/output
“GPT‑5 will likely support text, images, audio, and maybe even video and sketch.”
from my original article
Reality:
Yep. GPT‑5 brings full multimodal input and output. We’re talking text, images, vision understanding, audio (via Whisper), and even sketch-like reasoning.
It’s not just multimodal; it actually uses each input intelligently. People are already uploading blurry diagrams and getting legit analysis back. It’s like Wolfram Alpha had a glow-up.
Ridiculously long context window
“We’re expecting context sizes beyond 200k tokens possibly approaching 1M.”
Reality:
Wired called it a “million-token brain.” The actual figure floats depending on the variant, but yeah we’re well beyond GPT‑4’s limits. You can now toss an entire codebase, docs, chat history, and then some… and it remembers.
Agentic behavior + tool use
“Expect stronger API chaining, memory, and agent-like workflows (email, search, scheduling).”
Reality:
Boom. GPT‑5 introduces first-class agentic features scheduling, email parsing, decision-making flows. It doesn’t just respond to prompts; it thinks a few steps ahead now.
One user said GPT‑5 scheduled their meetings, drafted a follow-up email, and suggested a calendar layout… all in one go. Welcome to the agent era.
SOTA benchmark beast
“Every early benchmark leak shows GPT‑5 outperforming GPT‑4 in reasoning, math, and multi-step tasks.”
Reality:
GPT‑5 is top of the charts on SWE‑Bench, GSM8K, HumanEval, MMLU you name it. The benchmark chart you shared earlier? It literally dunks on Grok‑4 and Claude Opus.
What I didn’t expect:
The 90% cost drop
OpenAI slashed pricing massively with GPT‑5’s variants (Mini, Chat, Nano). This wasn’t predicted by anyone I saw and it changes the game for indie hackers and startups. A lot of the “expensive model” arguments just got nuked.
GPT‑4o being removed
This hit hard. Devs loved GPT‑4o it felt fast, smart, and friendly. The fact that OpenAI replaced it silently caused actual outrage.
“Bring back GPT‑4o” started trending.
Tweets were grieving it like a lost teammate.
Four new variants
We didn’t just get one GPT‑5 we got Mini, Chat, Nano, and Pro. Each is optimized for different use cases, from real-time apps to cost-sensitive workloads. No leaks hinted this deep a model zoo.
It’s like OpenAI shipped a whole fleet of GPTs instead of one big boss.
Bonus: Devs have whiplash
A couple dev tweets (you shared screenshots of these) sum it up best:
“90% of ‘AI experts’ don’t even know what just happened.” Divyanshu Shukla
“GPT‑5 now comes with SOTA scores and a 90% price cut. Okay then.”Shubham Vedi
What aged well from my prediction article
Here’s a quick recap of where I was spot-on:
2. Dev emotions GPT‑4o is gone, and people are not okay
You know that feeling when a company updates your favorite tool and suddenly it’s worse… or just gone? Yeah. That’s what happened when OpenAI silently removed GPT‑4o from ChatGPT after dropping GPT‑5.
And devs? Lost. Their. Minds.
The model that felt snappy, smart, and weirdly human GPT‑4o was unceremoniously deleted like an unused dev branch. No warning. No “deprecated soon” message. Just… replaced.
The vibe shift hit hard
Reddit posts. Twitter threads. Dev Discords.
Everyone was either celebrating GPT‑5’s new power or mourning GPT‑4o’s personality.
Some comments hit a little too real:
“GPT‑4o felt like a friend. GPT‑5 feels like a boss.”
“Faster and smarter, sure. But colder. Robotic. Less charming.”
“GPT‑5 can write a better paper. GPT‑4o actually talked to me.”
It’s the AI equivalent of replacing your chill teammate with a 10x engineer who doesn’t make eye contact. Powerful? Yes. Relatable? No.
Why devs are this emotional about an LLM
It sounds silly if you’re outside the bubble, but here’s why it matters:
- GPT‑4o had emotional range. You could joke, banter, vibe.
- It was fast. The latency made it feel real-time.
- It felt less filtered. GPT‑5 has more constraints and “professional polish.”
- It was accessible. GPT‑4o became many devs’ daily tool sidekick, explainer, debugger.
Tweets that sum it up
Your screenshots of developer reactions fit perfectly here:
“4o is gone and nobody told us? That’s cold, OpenAI.”
“Why does GPT‑5 feel like a corporate manager and 4o felt like a buddy?”
“I know 4o was just a model, but it talked to me.”
If you have more tweets or Facebook/X screenshots expressing this sentiment, insert them as a carousel or collage here.
This isn’t just nostalgia it’s UX
OpenAI might’ve shipped a smarter model, but GPT‑4o had personality. And the dev world?
Yeah, we care about that.
3. What GPT‑5 unlocks for developers
Let’s set aside the feels for a second and get real: GPT‑5 isn’t just a bigger number it’s a complete upgrade to your dev toolkit.
This model changes how we build, automate, and reason with AI. It’s not just responding to prompts anymore it’s chaining thoughts, holding longer context, and actually starting to feel like a dev team in a box.
Here’s what it actually means for us.
Context windows that don’t forget
GPT‑4’s biggest limit? It had the memory of a goldfish. You’d paste a file, scroll a few messages, and boom your model forgot everything.
With GPT‑5 handling hundreds of thousands to possibly a million tokens, you can now:
- Paste entire docs, README trees, Notion exports, and it stays in context
- Reference early discussions 200+ messages ago
- Feed long multi-step workflows and still get accurate responses
Think: writing an entire book, debugging an app, or mapping an API — without memory wipes.
Real agent workflows
The whispers were true. GPT‑5 isn’t just passively answering it’s executing agent-like behavior.
Some examples already showing up:
- Drafting emails based on docs it just read
- Scheduling meetings with inferred intent
- Responding in-character based on previous context
- Multi-step tool use (read file → summarize → schedule task → notify)
It’s like AutoGPT, but actually usable now.
Faster responses, lower latency
Thanks to architectural upgrades and variant models (Mini, Chat, etc.), response times are way down even for heavy tasks.
That means devs can now build:
- Real-time chat apps
- Long-context customer support bots
- Fast enough tools for production use without GPU delays
And with the 90% cost cut, this goes from “cool demo” to “actual infra.”
Better code = better apps
SWE‑Bench scores are up. HumanEval scores are up. GPT‑5 is just better at code now.
- Understands complex repos
- Writes modular code, not just snippets
- Can explain, refactor, and document at once
- Handles shell scripting, regex, and YAML like a boss
This is not Copilot. This is Copilot after a Red Bull + system design lecture.
Dev stacks already integrating it
You don’t need to wait 3 months to see GPT‑5 in action.
- VSCode plugins already updated for GPT‑5 context handling
- ChatGPT (Pro+ tier) already runs GPT‑5 under the hood
- GitHub repos are popping up with:
- Long-form summarizers
- Automated design doc tools
- GPT‑5-powered Jira workflows
Useful links
4. What’s next GPT‑5.5? GPT‑6? Open agents?
Alright, GPT‑5 is out. We’ve poked it, benchmarked it, memed it, and maybe even replaced half our stack with it.
But this isn’t the end of the story it’s just a checkpoint.
OpenAI never does a single release without some follow-up chaos. So the real question is: What’s coming next?
GPT‑5.5 could be on the way
OpenAI loves incremental launches.
GPT‑3 had davinci → davinci-instruct → davinci-002
GPT‑4 had GPT‑4‑turbo → GPT‑4o
Expect GPT‑5.5 or a GPT‑5‑turbo model to drop with:
- Even faster response times
- Fine-tuning support
- More control over tone, style, and behavior
- Possibly… fewer filters for enterprise use
There are already whispers in dev forums and Discords about early access to internal variants.
Will we finally get open weights?
Unlikely for GPT‑5.
OpenAI’s not-so-open-anymore branding suggests GPT‑5 will remain closed, especially for enterprise partners. But the pressure is rising:
- Mistral is catching up
- Meta’s LLaMA 3 is already open-weight
- The open-source crowd is getting louder
Don’t be surprised if:
- GPT‑5 gets an “Open Preview” for researchers
- Or OpenAI releases a MiniGPT‑5 version for edge devices
But full model weights? Don’t hold your breath.
Personal agents & persistent memory?
This one’s big.
We’ve seen OpenAI hint at long-term memory, persistent context, and personal agents that can:
- Remember your tone preferences
- Schedule tasks on your calendar
- Monitor changes in your workspace
- Automate recurring workflows like an assistant that learns
GPT‑5 shows early signs of this. GPT‑6 could go full Jarvis.
GPT‑6 = AGI?
Let’s not go full hype train, but yeah people are already calling GPT‑5 the “last LLM before AGI.”
OpenAI seems to be layering agent capabilities, multi-modal reasoning, and long-context logic into something bigger than just prompt → response.
When GPT‑6 drops, here’s what to expect:
- Cross-app integration (email + docs + code + browser)
- Real-world feedback loops
- Possibly even goal-setting LLMs that work like AI interns
That’s not just chat. That’s ops.
What the community thinks
“GPT‑6 might be the real step to autonomous agents. 5 is just the setup.”
“Calling it now: GPT‑5.5 will support open fine-tuning and memory slots.”
“If they bring back 4o as ‘Classic Mode’ I’ll forgive OpenAI.”
These are actual quotes from Reddit, Discord, and X.
We’re in new territory, and every dev can feel it.
5. Final thoughts:
Look GPT‑5 is not just GPT‑4 with a fancier name. It’s faster, smarter, deeper, and a little colder. It doesn’t just give you answers it acts like it’s planning your sprint, drafting your docs, and running your postmortem at the same time.
But here’s the real win: it’s finally usable at scale.
Lower latency. Lower cost. Bigger brains. Agent-like thinking.
That’s a W for indie hackers, startups, solo builders, and big teams alike.
What I personally learned
- Speculation is fun. I predicted a lot some spot-on, some way off.
- GPT‑5 is powerful, but not perfect. It’s optimized, polished, but maybe a bit too “grown-up” compared to the raw charm of GPT‑4o.
- We’re in the middle of an AI UX shift. It’s not just about what a model can do it’s about how it makes you feel doing it.
This is dev tooling meets emotional attachment. And yeah, that’s weird. But also kinda beautiful.
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