At the time of writing, it’s been 976 days since the world became aware of the viral phenomenon called ChatGPT based on the GPT-3.5 architecture. A few months later, GPT-4 launched, blowing the original out of the water.

People were stunned by the rate of progress. Ever since this back to back launch, many have wondered when the next iteration would be revealed, and how intelligent it would be. Rumors began to swirl, some saying that a behemoth model, GPT-5, was already underway and would launch shortly after GPT-4. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, denied these rumors declaring GPT-5 wouldn’t be trained for some time.

The public sentiment at the time was that he wasn’t telling the truth.

Turns out he was since OpenAI launched GPT-4o in the meantime. More models followed.

• GPT-4o: May 2024

• o1: September 2024

• GPT-4.5 : February 2024

• o3 : April 2025

But this didn’t stop the rumor mill.

Now the sentiment is that GPT-5 is coming rather soon. Some saying this week, some say maybe not. Impressive mysterious models appeared in the lmarena.

Perhaps GPT-5 is right around the corner. Perhaps it isn’t. OpenAI will doubtless hype up its arrival with much fanfare.