OpenAI Announces GPT-5 with Real-Time Reasoning
Overview
OpenAI has officially unveiled GPT-5, the latest iteration of its flagship language model. The announcement, made at a live event in San Francisco, introduces what the company calls “transparent reasoning” — a feature that allows users to see the model’s chain-of-thought process in real time as it works through complex problems.
The new model represents a significant leap forward in both capability and interpretability, addressing one of the most persistent criticisms of large language models: their opaque decision-making process. With GPT-5, users can now observe how the model breaks down problems, considers alternatives, and arrives at its conclusions.
Key Features
GPT-5 introduces several notable improvements over its predecessor. The real-time reasoning display shows a structured breakdown of the model’s thinking process, presented in a collapsible sidebar that users can toggle on or off. This transparency layer doesn’t slow down response generation — instead, it runs in parallel with the main output.
Performance benchmarks show a 40% improvement on graduate-level reasoning tasks compared to GPT-4o, with particularly strong gains in mathematics, scientific analysis, and multi-step logical deduction. The model also demonstrates significantly improved accuracy on factual queries, with hallucination rates reduced by approximately 60%.
Another major addition is native multimodal understanding. GPT-5 can seamlessly process and reason across text, images, audio, and video within a single conversation, maintaining context and coherence throughout.
Industry Impact
The announcement has already sent ripples through the AI industry. Analysts note that the transparent reasoning feature could significantly accelerate enterprise adoption, as it addresses key concerns around trust and accountability that have slowed deployment in regulated industries like healthcare and finance.
Competitors are likely to follow suit. Google DeepMind and Anthropic have both published research on interpretable AI systems in recent months, suggesting that transparency in reasoning may become a standard feature across frontier models by the end of the year.
Availability
GPT-5 is rolling out today to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise subscribers, with API access following next week. The model will be available in two variants: a standard version optimized for general use and a “GPT-5 Deep” variant designed for extended reasoning tasks that require more computational depth.
Pricing for API access has not changed from GPT-4o rates, which OpenAI says reflects improved efficiency in the model’s architecture. Free-tier users will get limited access to GPT-5 starting next month.
What’s Next
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman hinted at further developments coming later this year, including agent capabilities that would allow GPT-5 to autonomously complete multi-step tasks while providing full transparency into its decision-making at each stage. The company also announced a new safety board that will oversee the deployment of increasingly capable systems.
For the AI industry as a whole, GPT-5’s emphasis on transparency signals a broader shift toward building AI systems that humans can understand, verify, and trust — a trend that seems likely to define the next phase of AI development.