So, the wait is over and the world saw OpenAI officially launch ChatGPT 5 (GPT-5) on August 7, 2025 and this is one of the most anticipated AI-related launches of the Year and for good reason.
Some speculate that this launch might have even come a little bit earlier because of the launch of Grok 4. Whatever the case may be, today we are going to talk about what exactly is GPT-5.
We will understand why there is so much hype around this launch and why it is also being called as PhD-level intelligence in everyone’s hands and we are also going to find out if it is actually free.
However, most importantly, we are going to look at its limitations and find out the whole truth behind
GPT-5.
So, let us start by understanding what is GPT-5 and what makes it different from all the rest of the LLM models and AI assistants in the industry.
What is Open AI’s GPT-5? What Makes GPT-5 Different?
If you have used AI assistants in the past and especially OpenAI’s ChatGPT for anything professional or work-related, then you understand how difficult things can become when it comes to juggling between different ChatGPT models.
Some models are good with fast tasks, others are good with coding, while others are good with reasoning.
In the situation, if you are not someone well acquainted with the strengths and weaknesses of each Open AI model from the list of models like gpt-3.5-turbo, gpt-3.5-turbo-16k, gpt-4, gpt 4-turbo, gpt-4o then it can become quite difficult to get the fullest benefit of Chat GPT.
This is where we come to ChatGPT 5 (GPT-5). The fundamental difference between GPT-5 and the older models is the fact that you do not have to do the model switching yourself.
With GPT-5, Chat GPT will do the model switching for you and this means you can expect the best performance this AI assistant has to offer every single time.
What this means in simple terms is:
- Faster, lighter models will be utilised for daily tasks and everyday questions.
- Deep reason models will be utilised for complex problems.
- The switching will be done automatically on the intuition of the LLM itself.
GPT-5 therefore, is going to make using AI quite simple for the everyday person who simply does not have the time or reason to study each Chat GPT model and its specialities because they simply want to input a prompt and get the results in the best way possible.
Along with that, this model is different from the older ones because GPT 5 performs really well in applications with multi-step requests and is able to co-ordinate across different tools and adapt to changes in context much better and also hold context even better as it now supports a huge context window of up to 272,000 input tokens and 128,000 output tokens making it the ideal model for processing long documents.
This also means that GPT 5 performs incredibly well with extensive codebases and complex research projects with its enhanced memory and context, fuelling this improvement.
The model is really good at:
- Complex frontend generation and debugging of larger repositories
- Full-stack software design
- Vibe coding
Additionally, GPT-5 is great at multiple domains and we shall look at them now.
PhD-Level Expertise Across Domains
GPT-5 is being called the PhD-level model and according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, “GPT-3 felt like talking to a high school student, GPT-4 felt like talking to a college student. GPT-5 is the first time it genuinely feels like talking to a PhD-level expert in any subject”.
And it shows.
The responses are dramatically faster and the performance gains are substantial across multiple key areas.
Math: 94.6% on AIME 2025 (without tools)
Humanity’s Last Exam (Full Set)*
Coding
Health
Multimodal
These results are an indication that GPT-5 is able to perform better than the older models in nearly every context and in every type of application.
Although we have tested the image generation model and there is not really a significant leap in that area.
Reduced Hallucinations with GPT-5
Hallucinations have always been a significant problem with any AI model and one of the significant improvements of GPT-5 is that it is 45% less likely to contain any factual errors compared to GPT-4o.
This reduction in hallucination errors becomes even more significant at 80% reduction when we compare GPT-5 to o3.
Creative Writing and Expression
One of the most significant developments and noticeable changes you are going to see with GPT-5 compared to the older models is that it is the most capable writing collaborator till date from OpenAI.
This means that when you ask GPT-5 to create some kind of writing content for you, it will not just try to answer the question and produce the content as an answer but it will try to produce a result that is actually powerful in nature and has the “writing flair”, so to speak, with personality and nuance.
This means that you can even utilise GPT-5 for complex writing tasks such as sustaining unrhymed iambic pentameter or creating free verse with a lot of ease and expressive clarity.
Real-World Limitations and User Complaints
Usage Limits Hit Faster Than Expected
While GPT-5 has definitely been an improvement over the older models but users are still finding that the automatic reasoning mode is consuming usage limits much faster than the older models.
This is definitely an issue that can potentially stop users from liking GPT-5.
Cold, Robotic Communication Style
While this is subjective but many users still find GPT-5 to be much more robotic than GPT-4. Users have complained that GPT-5 is producing very formal responses which does not have any warmth or humour, although we would give it the benefit of the doubt because it has just been released.
Memory System Failures
As of now, multiple users have reported serious ongoing memory issues where new memories have failed to save in spite of the users being shown the memory updated messages and the memory limits have been reached without warnings.
Code Generation Bugs in Large Projects
Users have also reported code generation bugs, especially when it comes to large projects and while GPT-5 is usually very good with frontend development, it can still struggle with complex projects that exceed 600 lines of code.
Incremental vs. Revolutionary Improvements
One of the things we must understand is that GPT-5 is incremental at best because it is not Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) yet. Some users have even described GPT-5 as feeling like “GPT-4.6 rather than a true generational leap”.
But yes, it is a step in the right direction, that’s for sure.
So, Is GPT-5 Really FREE?
Yes, GPT-5 is free, but there is an asterisk. All the ChatGPT models have now been combined into GPT-5 which means that when you are going to use ChatGPT, you are going to see that you are using GPT-5 but there are significant usage restrictions for free users.
Free users are only going to get 10 messages every hour for the basic GPT-5 along with 1 GPT-5 “Thinking Message” every day.
After the free user has hit their limits, they will automatically fall back to GPT-5 mini and as a free user, you will not get access to GPT-5 Pro.
This chart showcases the limitations of each user, with many Plus users complaining that 80 messages/3 hours and 200 thinking messages/week is just too less for a paying user.
So, in general, GPT-5 is the most capable leap ever for the general public when it comes to creating an AI assistant you can simply log into and start using straightaway without having to study its capabilities and models.
It is definitely an improvement when it comes to reasoning and coding, as well as factual accuracy, and we are also going to see this model get better with time as the OpenAI team irons out the bugs and memory issues, as well as usage limit problems.
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