OpenAI narrows ChatGPT

OpenAI has stripped several older models out of ChatGPT’s public model picker, narrowing what consumer users can choose inside the app. (help.openai.com) OpenAI’s help center 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. The same notice says application programming interface access was unchanged. (help.openai.com) A separate OpenAI help article says GPT-5.1 models were retired on March 11, 2026 across normal chats and custom GPTs in ChatGPT, while remaining available through the OpenAI application programming interface. That article also says GPT-4o was kept for ChatGPT Business, Enterprise, and Edu custom GPTs only until April 3, 2026. (help.openai.com) That leaves a sharper split between ChatGPT, which is OpenAI’s consumer chat product, and the application programming interface, which lets developers call specific models from their own software. OpenAI’s model release notes and help pages now describe the retired models as gone from ChatGPT but still available in the application programming interface. (help.openai.com, help.openai.com) OpenAI’s current ChatGPT release notes show the company still adding new models to the product, including GPT-4.1 in ChatGPT and GPT-5.3 Instant Mini as a fallback model after rate limits. The change is not a freeze in model development; it is a reset of which models ordinary ChatGPT users can pick directly. (help.openai.com, help.openai.com) OpenAI has been pushing users toward a smaller set of current models while keeping older ones alive for developers who built software around them. The help center says OpenAI will provide advance notice ahead of future application programming interface retirements. (help.openai.com) The company also synchronized the retirement language across consumer, business, enterprise, education, and GPT-building help pages, signaling that the cutoff was a product-wide policy rather than a temporary interface bug. Multiple OpenAI support articles now carry the same February 13, 2026 retirement notice. (help.openai.com, help.openai.com, help.openai.com) For ChatGPT users, the practical change is simpler menus and fewer legacy options. For developers and larger customers, OpenAI’s message is narrower: the old models are leaving ChatGPT first, not disappearing from the company’s broader platform all at once. (help.openai.com, help.openai.com)