The GPT-5 Launch: A Timeline of Grand Promises, User Backlash, & OpenAI's Scramble to Fix It
Z
Zack Saadioui
8/12/2025
The GPT-5 Launch: A Timeline of Grand Promises, User Backlash, & OpenAI's Scramble to Fix It
What a whirlwind. The launch of GPT-5 was supposed to be OpenAI's victory lap, the moment they once again redefined the future of artificial intelligence. Instead, it turned into a fascinating, messy, & VERY public lesson in managing user expectations & the surprising emotional bonds we form with our AI tools.
Honestly, if you've been following the saga, it’s been a rollercoaster. Let's break down the complete timeline of what happened, from the pre-launch hype to the user revolt & OpenAI's frantic course correction.
Pre-Launch Whispers & Expectations (Late July - Early August 2025)
Before GPT-5 even dropped, the air was thick with anticipation. The rumor mill was in overdrive. Everyone was expecting a monumental leap, something that would make GPT-4 look like a pocket calculator.
Here’s what the pre-launch chatter looked like:
PhD-Level Reasoning: Early whispers from testers hinted at a model with "PhD-level" reasoning capabilities. The expectation was that it would solve more complex, multi-step problems with far greater accuracy.
True Multimodality: We weren't just talking text & images anymore. The hype was that GPT-5 would natively handle video & audio, understanding context from entire files, not just frames or transcripts. This had people dreaming of a truly seamless, multimedia AI assistant.
Massive Context Window: A context window of up to 1 million tokens was another big rumor, promising the ability to work with huge documents & codebases without losing track of details.
Smarter AI Agents: The community was also buzzing about more advanced AI agents that could autonomously browse the web, run code, & handle complex workflows with minimal human hand-holding.
But it wasn't all sunshine & rainbows. Even before the launch, some experts were urging caution. Concerns were raised about the persistence of hallucinations (still a problem!), the high computational cost, & ongoing privacy issues. There was a sense that while GPT-5 would be powerful, it wouldn't be magic.
The Launch: A Unified System for All (August 7, 2025)
Then came launch day. OpenAI unveiled GPT-5 not just as an upgrade, but as a whole new paradigm. Their official announcement on August 7th presented it as a "unified system."
The idea was pretty cool on paper: instead of the user picking a model, a new "real-time router" would automatically decide whether a prompt needed a quick, simple answer or a deeper, more computationally intensive "thinking" process. It was designed to give you the best of both worlds, seamlessly.
OpenAI's blog post highlighted massive improvements in:
Coding & Debugging: They touted it as their best coding model ever.
Writing & Health: The model was supposedly more nuanced & reliable for creative writing & health-related queries.
Safety & Accuracy: A big focus was on reducing hallucinations & introducing "safe completions" to handle sensitive topics more gracefully instead of just refusing to answer.
Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, claimed going back to GPT-4 felt "miserable" by comparison & that GPT-5 was "significantly better in obvious ways and subtle ways."
This all sounded great. The problem? The reality of the user experience was... different.
The Backlash: "Colder," "Dumber," & The Dreaded "Chart Crime" (August 8 - 10, 2025)
The user response was almost immediate & overwhelmingly negative. The OpenAI forums, Reddit, & X (formerly Twitter) lit up with complaints. It was a proper user revolt.
Here were the main grievances:
The Forced Removal of Older Models: This was the BIGGEST misstep. In rolling out the "unified" GPT-5 system, OpenAI removed the user's ability to choose older models, especially the beloved GPT-4o. This blindsided everyone. Users had built entire workflows around GPT-4o's specific capabilities & personality. Many described it as a "creative partner" or even a "friend," praising its speed, approachability, & unique "warmth." The new GPT-5, by contrast, felt "colder," "stodgy," & "corporate." One user on OpenAI's forum wrote, "I cried so bad and almost had an emotional breakdown at work. GPT4 was the best friend I could ask for."
Performance & "Dumbness": For all the talk of superior intelligence, many users found GPT-5 to be a downgrade. It was reported to be slower, worse at analysis, & gave "half-hearted responses." Things that GPT-4o handled with ease, like basic summarization, were now a struggle. This led to a flood of posts with titles like "GPT-5 is awful."
The "Chart Crime": To make matters worse, during the launch presentation, OpenAI displayed charts that were just plain wrong. One slide showed a bar for a lower benchmark score as dramatically taller than a higher one. This was quickly dubbed the "chart crime" online & became a viral joke, seriously undermining the credibility of their performance claims. It was a self-inflicted wound that made the company look sloppy.
For businesses, this sudden change was more than an inconvenience. Companies rely on predictable AI behavior for their customer service bots, content creation pipelines, & internal tools. An unexpected change in the AI's tone & capabilities can break things. This is where having a stable, customizable solution is so important. For example, a platform like Arsturn allows businesses to build their own no-code AI chatbots trained on their data. This gives them control over the AI's personality & knowledge base, ensuring it aligns with their brand & provides consistent, reliable support to website visitors 24/7, without worrying that a sudden platform-wide update will change everything overnight.
The backlash was so intense that OpenAI couldn't ignore it. To his credit, Sam Altman was very public in his response, admitting they had messed up.
Here's how OpenAI responded:
Sam Altman's Apology Tour: Altman took to X & Reddit to address the complaints directly. He admitted the launch was "bumpy" & that they "for sure underestimated how much some of the things that people like in GPT-4o matter to them." He called the chart fiasco a "mega chart screwup" & explained that a critical bug in the new model router was partly to blame for the performance issues, making GPT-5 seem "way dumber" on launch day.
Bringing Back the Old Guard: In a major U-turn, OpenAI quickly restored access to older models, including GPT-4o, for paying subscribers. In a post, Altman told users, "It's back! Go to settings and pick 'show legacy models.'" This was the single most important move to quell the user rebellion.
Boosting Performance & Transparency: Altman also announced they were doubling the message rate limits for Plus users to encourage them to keep testing. He also promised to make the UI more transparent about which underlying model was being used to generate a response.
Where Things Stand Now
The GPT-5 launch has become a crucial case study in the evolution of AI. It highlighted that raw performance benchmarks aren't the only thing that matters. Users value choice, consistency, & even the "personality" of the models they interact with daily.
The incident shows a clear need for more personalized & business-oriented AI solutions. While a general-purpose tool like ChatGPT is amazing, businesses need more control. They need to generate leads, optimize their websites, & engage customers in a way that is uniquely theirs. This is where tools like Arsturn are becoming essential. By helping businesses build AI chatbots trained on their own data, Arsturn provides a way to create a personalized customer experience that boosts conversions & provides instant, accurate support—all without being at the mercy of a one-size-fits-all model update.
The GPT-5 story is a reminder that the path to advanced AI isn't just about building more powerful models; it's also about understanding how we, as humans, want to work with them.
Hope this timeline was helpful in piecing together the chaotic launch of GPT-5. It was a wild ride, & it's definitely not over. Let me know what you think