OpenAI quietly reshuffled models
OpenAI told users that several front‑end ChatGPT models — including GPT‑4o, GPT‑4.1 and variants — have been retired from ChatGPT while API access remains unchanged for Business and Enterprise customers. Separately, speculative reporting says a new internal model nicknamed “Spud” completed pre‑training on March 24 and could ship soon, though that report is not an official OpenAI announcement. (help.openai.com, abhs.in)
OpenAI removed several older model options from ChatGPT on February 13, 2026, while leaving application programming interface access unchanged. (help.openai.com) The retired ChatGPT models include GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, OpenAI o4-mini, and GPT-5 Instant and GPT-5 Thinking, according to OpenAI’s help documentation. OpenAI said ChatGPT Business, Enterprise, and Edu customers could keep GPT-4o inside Custom GPTs until April 3, 2026. (help.openai.com) OpenAI published the change in Help Center articles and release notes rather than in a separate product launch post. The company said GPTs built on retired models would move automatically to the nearest GPT-5.3 Instant or GPT-5.4 Thinking and Pro equivalent. (help.openai.com, help.openai.com) The change redraws the line between ChatGPT, which is OpenAI’s consumer and workplace interface, and the application programming interface, which companies use to plug models into their own software. OpenAI’s Help Center says the ChatGPT retirements do not change application programming interface availability. (help.openai.com, help.openai.com) That means the model list a person sees inside ChatGPT can shrink even while the same family stays available to developers and large customers elsewhere. OpenAI repeated that distinction across Business, Enterprise, Edu, rate-card, and legacy-access support pages updated in late March and early April 2026. (help.openai.com, help.openai.com, help.openai.com) OpenAI also said the retirement does not apply to every feature that shares GPT-4o branding underneath. The company said ChatGPT Voice and ChatGPT Images are not changing as part of this update, even though Voice uses a similar base model to GPT-4o. (help.openai.com) Separate reports have focused on a possible next model inside OpenAI under the internal nickname “Spud.” Those reports are not OpenAI product announcements, and OpenAI has not published a public launch date or product page for a model by that name. (abhs.in, help.openai.com) One recent report, citing earlier reporting from The Information, said “Spud” completed pre-training on March 24, 2026 and moved into safety evaluation. Another said the nickname refers to OpenAI’s next frontier model, but neither report included an official OpenAI release commitment. (abhs.in, trendingtopics.eu) For now, the confirmed story is narrower than the speculation: OpenAI has already simplified the model picker inside ChatGPT, and any “Spud” launch remains unconfirmed outside third-party reporting. (help.openai.com, abhs.in)
