Tag: chatgpt

As OpenAI prepares to show ads to all Free and Go users, advertisers are giddy

Everyone on Free and Go plans will be getting ads before soon. (Picture: screenshot)
According to The Information (paywalled), OpenAI will soon stop its «experiment» in ads. They will go for a full advertising service in «the coming weeks,» reports Reuters.

That means the test with showing some ads to about 5% of users is coming to an end, and the full plan will start up just after easter.

The limited advertising has so far been a success. The main complaint from advertisers is that it’s going too slow, according to CNBC. Most of them are happy and ready to spend more — with more varied ads.

— We’re encouraged by early signals from users and participating brands, and continue to see strong interest from advertisers, OpenAI tells CNBC.

The advertising program on Free and Go tiers is expected to earn OpenAI about $1 billion per year, and usher in a third tier for advertisers in addition to Search, Social, and Retail.

Read more: The Information (paywalled), Reuters, and CNBC.

OpenAI plans to combine Codex, ChatGPT and Atlas in «super app»

Feeling that OpenAI has lost focus, attention turns to putting all eggs in one basket. (Picture: generated)
According to The Wall Street Journal, the new app will include agentic capabilities, and signals another step in the company’s recent quest to refocus on coding and business users.

The app will make it easier for teams within OpenAI to work together, the WSJ reports, and will help other users with productivity-related tasks, as they double down on enterprise users.

The standalone ChatGPT app will not be affected by the move, although the paper notes that OpenAI feels it has lost attention by focusing on «side quests» like the Sora app — now rumored to get included in ChatGPT proper.

OpenAI’s Fidji Simo will be leading the super app effort, and she tweets that:

— When new bets start to work, like we’re seeing now with Codex, it’s very important to double down on them and avoid distractions.

Read more: The Wall Street Journal and CNBC.

OpenAI upgrades GPT-5.3-instant to be «less clickbait-y» in its responses

“If you want, I can also explain…”-clickbait should largely be gone from the model after the latest update. (Picture: generated)
5.3-instant is the model most people encounter on the Plus and Pro subscriptions on a daily basis. It was supposed to be «less cringe,» and offer «fewer lectures.»

But many had noticed that it had become filled with follow-up questions for simple queries, offering «one strange trick,» «would you like me to tell you three things that…» and «You’ll never believe…»

These teaser-style responses were not just annoying, but sometimes frustrating — as if the bot had become optimized for engagement and tried to keep the conversation going after already answering the query.

The good news is that as of March 16, 2026, OpenAI has upgraded the model to show less of this slop, and users should already be noticing an improvement in «follow-up tone.»

Read more: OpenAI’s update page, Android Headlines.

ChatGPT’s «adult mode» hotly debated at OpenAI, will be smutty, but not porn

There are several roadblocks for Adult Mode, should it ever come to pass. (Picture: generated)
According to The Wall Street Journal, the upcoming «adult mode» for ChatGPT is hitting some internal snags.

Touted by CEO Sam Altman as letting «adults be adults» in October 2025, it was later delayed and then deprioritized last week.

It now seems the company’s internal advisory board is against going forward with the feature, saying it could foster «unhealthy emotional dependence,» Mashable writes.

Also holding back the launch is the fact that ChatGPT’s age checks aren’t that good, and has a rather large error rate of 12% on identifying kids and teens, The Verge reports.

100 million under 18s use ChatGPT every week, which would mean that some 12 million of them could be classified as adults and exposed to «sexualized conversations.»

The feature is currently postponed due to «other priorities,» but is said to skirt images, voice and video for pure text, and will supposedly be «smutty,» not «pornographic,» the Verge says.

Read more: The Wall Street Journal (paywalled), Mashable and The Verge.

OpenAI launches GPT-5.4 mini and nano for Free and Go tiers

GPT-5.4-mini comes close to GPT-5.4 on accuracy and cost. (Picture: OpenAI)
Being about two times faster than the previous GPT-5-mini, the models offer solid coding performance for these tiers for the first time.

GPT-5.4-mini can be accessed today by choosing «Thinking» from the model picker on the Free and Pro tiers.

The model is stronger than 5-mini on reasoning, multimodal understanding, tool use and subagents, OpenAI says.

It is also available in Codex, where it uses only 30% of tokens for the same task compared to 5.4 proper — and is usable for workloads where latency and speed are important.

Also introduced today is GPT-5.4-nano, which is for the times when speed and cost matter most. It costs only $0.20/$1.25 per 1M tokens, and is handy for mass classification, ranking, coding subagents and compaction.

Nano doesn’t support web search or computer use, and is only available in the API.

Read more: OpenAI’s introduction, Tibor Blaho on X.com, Engadget.

Entering the halls of power, AI chatbots get approved for U.S. Senate use

The Senate officially clears the big three chatbots for staffer use. (Picture: generated)
After some staffers had been using chatbots informally at work since at least 2025, the Senate’s Sergeant at Arms office of the Chief Information Officer has now approved three of them officially.

The chatbots cleared for «drafting and editing documents, summarizing information, preparing talking points and briefing material, and conducting research and analysis» are ChatGPT Enterprise, Gemini on Workspace and Copilot, according to Business Insider.

Anthropic’s Claude is not on the list, although it has been approved for use in The House of Representatives since September 2024. President Trump earlier said government agencies shouldn’t use Claude after the Pentagon spat in February.

The Sergeant at Arms will now provide all Senate employees with an AI chatbot license at no cost. The office also touts Copilot Chat as integrated with Office 365 and is usable with Word and Excel — although Claude also offers this capability.

Read more: Business Insider has the memo, NY Times reported it first. Popvox has a Congressional AI tracker.

Sora 2 video generation could be heading for ChatGPT «soon»

Sora video generation in ChatGPT would expand access, but also increase costs. (Picture: generated)
The Information and ChatGPT-watcher Tibor Blaho are both reporting an upcoming release of video generation in the main ChatGPT app.

According to The Information’s x.com post, the release seems imminent, while Blaho has spotted Sora generation mentions and ID’s in the latest Andoid beta ChatGPT App.

Sora 2 was launched as a quasi social network with its own app in October 2025 and was invite-only.

Judging by early search interest on Google for «Sora invite code» soon after launch, interest for the app greatly exceeded capacity and available invites.

It produces 10-second clips from prompts or pictures and promises to put your likeness in anything you can imagine. It briefly went viral, running up some 920 million weekly users before dropping from #1 to #165 in the App Store.

Putting the app’s features into the mainline GPT app will bring it up to par with Google’s AI subscriptions, which gives users access to the video generator Veo 3 on the $25 Pro plan.

Read more: The Information (paywalled), Tibor Blaho on X, and Reuters.

As 140 million people use ChatGPT for learning math, OpenAI adds visuals

That’s a big number out of 900 million weekly ChatGPT users, accounting for about a sixth of the total usage and outperforming even health questions.

In their announcement, OpenAI says that more than half of U.S. adults struggle with math, and don’t feel confident teaching it to their kids.

Continue reading “As 140 million people use ChatGPT for learning math, OpenAI adds visuals”

OpenAI puts «adult mode» on the back burner, for now

«Adult mode» on ChatGPT gets another postponement. (Picture: generated)
The much touted feature last showed up as «naughty chats» in the Android app just two weeks ago, but is now postponed indefinitely.

It was supposed to debut in the first quarter of 2026, after first being conceived as «letting adults be adults» in October 2025. It was supposed to run in tandem with age verification, rolled out this January.

OpenAI says that «we still believe in the principle of treating adults like adults, but getting the experience right will take more time,» writes Axios.

The postponement is due to the company focusing on other high priority issues, such as «intelligence, personality improvements, personalization,» and «making the experience more proactive.»

Read more: Axios and TechCrunch.

OpenAI’s new ChatGPT-5.4 has native computer use and less hallucinations

The latest version of ChatGPT sees a marked jump in the benchmarks. (Picture: Adobe)
The new Thinking and Pro models are more «capable and efficient» and is the first OpenAI model with native computer use skills. It also improves on hallucinations and Office files creation — areas where Anthropic has been thriving.

— Together with advances in general reasoning, coding, and professional knowledge work, GPT‑5.4 enables more reliable agents, faster developer workflows, and higher-quality outputs across ChatGPT, the API, and Codex, OpenAI writes.

On hallucinations, it is 33% less likely to be wrong in its responses, and 18% less apt to have mistakes in replies compared to GPT‑5.2.

Continue reading “OpenAI’s new ChatGPT-5.4 has native computer use and less hallucinations”

OpenAI launches GPT-5.3-instant with fewer lectures and less hallucinations

GPT-5.3-Instant performs better than 5.1-Instant and is a little behind 5.2-Instant, but is better at conversation. (Picture: Adobe)
Hallucinations are down 27% when it uses the web and ~20% in reasoning, and OpenAI did actually notice that the 5.2 model often cames across like a nanny — berating users with obvious, condescending lectures for harmless questions.

This has been solved by reducing unnecessary «dead ends,» caveats and «declarative formulations» in order to let the conversation flow more freely — solving one of many users’ major gripes with the current OpenAI models.

The model is also better at search, combining search responses with its own knowledge and reasoning. This should put results into context instead of just summarizing results.

Bu the real update with this model is bringing ChatGPT to a more natural style and tone with freely flowing conversation — which should be far less «cringe.»

OpenAI is promising less «Stop. Take a breath»-responses, or «I’m going to calm this down» kinds of outputs. It should also be better at creative writing.

GPT-5.3-instant is available today in the app (choose Instant in the model selector), API and web, and updates to Thinking and Pro are «coming soon.»

Read more: OpenAI’s announcement, writeups on 9to5Google, TechCrunch and The Register.

Source code in new ChatGPT Android app mentions «naughty chats»

According to ChatGPT watcher Tibor Blaho, adult mode is getting closer to going live, with «spicier, adult-themed language.»

The idea was to get age verification on ChatGPT sorted first, so teens could be protected from «sensitive content,» while the app would let «adults be adults.»

Verification was rolled out in January, and people have been asking when ChatGPT for adults would finally ship.

Big brands are hitting ChatGPT ads — but only show in 0.8% of responses

Ads from Expedia, Qualcomm, Best Buy, and Enterprise Mobility have started appearing in relation to ChatGPT queries, Adweek reports.

The «early tests» have been ongoing since February 9th, and OpenAI is asking advertisers to pay a $200,000 minimum to join in.

— We believe ads play an important role in continuing to support broad access to AI, Asad Awan, ads and monetization lead at OpenAI, tells Adweek in a statement.

— By working closely with partners in this pilot, we’re able to thoughtfully test new ad experiences, he continues.

The advertising intelligence platform Adthena ran a test on over 500 prompts in ChatGPT and found ad placements on only 0.8% of responses, according to Adweek.

Adthena also found ads were clearly labeled, sometimes triggering on the first prompt, that OpenAI is surpisingly focused on privacy and user control, and that the text format seemed familiar and trusted.

Read more: Adweek, and Adthena on LinkedIn.

OpenAI introduces Lockdown Mode and Elevated Risk protections

Only secure access is granted in the new Lockdown Mode. (Picture: OpenAI)
ChatGPT can be useful, but also carries some risk — especially when it’s browsing the web or using apps.

That’s why OpenAI is now launching «an advanced, optional setting for higher risk users.»

The idea is to disable tools an adversary might use to «to exploit to exfiltrate sensitive data,» such as prompt injection attacks in files or on the web.

When using Lockdown Mode, web use is limited to cached content only, and no live network access is available outside of OpenAI’s «controlled network»

Most people will never need this feature, OpenAI says, but it might be useful for corporate execs, security teams, journalists and officials.

OpenAI is also launching an «Elevated Risk»-setting, that lets users fine-tune network access for Atlas and Codex.

Both features are coming to users «in the coming months.»

Read more: OpenAI’s announcement.

New «Chat» model coming this week, Altman says in memo to staff

After enjoying great success with GPT-5.3 on Codex, it seems to be ChatGPT’s turn this week. (Picture: generated)
While touting a return to more than 10% monthly growth for ChatGPT and «insane» Codex growth, Sam Altman also said they are preparing to launch «an updated Chat model» this week, writes CNBC.

That would likely be GPT-5.3, debuted last week for Codex. It’s a blazingly fast and more capable successor to 5.2, and is said to be one of the first models used to make itself.

The new Codex model has been a great success, funneling a 60% growth in overall use just last week.

That model is also available to Free and Go users for a limited time, and is now being extended with perhaps reduced limits, Altman says:

— We want everyone to be able to try Codex and start building.

Read the full scoop on CNBC