ChatGPT consumer UI narrowed

OpenAI has stripped several older model choices out of the consumer ChatGPT picker, narrowing what regular users can select inside the app. (help.openai.com) The help article says GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, OpenAI o4-mini, and GPT-5 Instant and GPT-5 Thinking were retired from ChatGPT on February 13, 2026. It also says application programming interface access to those models “remains unchanged.” (help.openai.com) OpenAI repeated the same language across its ChatGPT Business, Enterprise, and Edu documentation, with one temporary exception: those customers kept GPT-4o inside Custom GPTs until April 3, 2026. A separate legacy-access page says GPT-4o was fully retired across all plans after that date. (help.openai.com 1) (help.openai.com 2) The change separates two OpenAI products that often blur together for users: ChatGPT is the consumer and workplace interface, while the application programming interface is the developer service that lets companies plug specific models into their own software. OpenAI’s model docs still list GPT-4.1 as an application programming interface model family. (developers.openai.com) That split has been building for a year. When OpenAI introduced GPT-4.1 on April 14, 2025, it called the release “in the API” and launched GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and GPT-4.1 nano for developers rather than as a broad ChatGPT consumer rollout. (openai.com) OpenAI’s release notes show the consumer picker had already been moving toward fewer visible options. One update says GPT-4.1 mini replaced GPT-4o mini under “more models” for paid users, and another says GPT-5.4 mini will not appear as a selectable model even when it is used as a fallback. (help.openai.com) The retirement notice also draws a line between text models and image systems. OpenAI says image generation uses a similar base model as GPT-4o, but is “ultimately a different model” from the text GPT-4o model that was retired from ChatGPT. (help.openai.com) For ChatGPT users, the practical result is a simpler menu with fewer legacy names to choose from. For developers and some business customers, the older models remained available longer or stayed available through the application programming interface, even as the public-facing picker got smaller. (help.openai.com 1) (help.openai.com 2)