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Within the 2.5 years since OpenAI debuted ChatGPT, the variety of massive language fashions (LLMs) that the corporate has made out there as choices to energy its hit chatbot has steadily grown.
In truth, there at the moment are a complete of seven (!!!) completely different AI fashions that paying ChatGPT subscribers (of the $20 Plus tier and dearer tiers) can select between when interacting with the trusty chatbot — every with its personal strengths and weaknesses.
These embrace:
- GPT-4o
- o3
- o4-mini
- o4-mini-high
- GPT-4.5 (Analysis Preview)
- GPT-4.1
- GPT-4.1-mini
However how ought to a consumer resolve which one to make use of for his or her explicit immediate, query, or job? In any case, you possibly can solely decide one after the other.
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Is assistance on the way in which?
Assist seems to be on the way in which imminently from OpenAI — as stories emerged over the previous couple of days on X from AI influencers, together with OpenAI’s personal researcher “Roon (@tszzl on X)” (purported to be technical workforce member Tarun Gogineni) — of a brand new “router” operate that may robotically choose the most effective OpenAI mannequin to reply to the consumer’s enter on the fly, relying on the particular enter’s content material.
As Roon posted on the social community X yesterday, July 20, 2025, in since-deleted response to influencer Lisan al Gaib’s assertion that they “don’t need a mannequin router I need to have the ability to choose the fashions I exploit”:
“You’ll nonetheless be capable to choose. This can be a product to make it possible for docs aren’t caught on 4o-mini”
Equally, Yuchen Jin, Co-founder & CTO of AI inference cloud supplier Hyperbolic Labs, wrote in an X publish on July 19.
“Heard GPT-5 is imminent, from slightly chicken.
- It’s not one mannequin, however a number of fashions. It has a router that switches between reasoning, non-reasoning, and tool-using fashions.
- That’s why Sam mentioned they’d “repair mannequin naming”: prompts will simply auto-route to the correct mannequin.
- GPT-6 is in coaching.
I simply hope they’re not delaying it for extra security exams. 🙂“
Whereas a presumably way more superior GPT-5 mannequin would (and can) be enormous information if and when launched, the router might make life a lot simpler and extra clever for the common ChatGPT subscriber.
It will additionally comply with on the heels of different third-party merchandise such because the web-based Token Monster chatbot, which robotically choose and mix responses from a number of third-party LLMs to reply to consumer queries.
Requested concerning the router thought and feedback from “Roon,” an OpenAI spokesperson declined to supply a response or additional info right now.
Fixing the overabundance of selection downside
To be clear, each time OpenAI has launched a brand new LLM to the general public, it has diligently shared in both a weblog publish or launch notes or each what it thinks that individual mannequin is nice for and designed to assist with.
For instance, OpenAI’s “o” collection reasoning fashions — o3, o4-mini, o4-mini excessive — have carried out higher on math, science, and coding exams because of benchmarking exams, whereas non-reasoning fashions like the brand new GPT-4.5 and 4.1 appear to do higher at inventive writing and communications duties.
Devoted AI influencers and energy customers might perceive very nicely what all these completely different fashions are good and never so good at.
However common customers who don’t comply with the trade as intently, nor have the time and funds out there to check all of them out on the identical enter prompts and examine the outputs, will understandably wrestle to make sense of the bewildering array of choices.
That would imply they’re lacking out on smarter, extra clever, or extra succesful responses from ChatGPT for his or her job at hand. And within the case of fields like drugs, as Roon alluded to, the distinction may very well be one among life or dying.
It’s additionally fascinating to invest on how an computerized LLM router may change public perceptions towards and adoption of AI extra broadly.
ChatGPT already counted 500 million energetic customers as of March. If extra of those individuals have been robotically guided towards extra clever and succesful LLMs to deal with their AI queries, the affect of AI on their workloads and that of all the international financial system would appear prone to be felt way more acutely, making a optimistic “snowball” impact.
That’s, as extra individuals noticed extra good points from ChatGPT robotically selecting the best AI mannequin for his or her queries, and as extra enterprises reaped better effectivity from this course of, increasingly people and organizations would probably be satisfied by the utility of AI and be extra keen to pay for it, and as they did so, even extra AI-powered workflows would unfold out on the planet.
However proper now, that is presumably all being held again slightly by the truth that the ChatGPT mannequin picker requires the consumer to A. know they actually have a selection of fashions and B. have some degree of knowledgeable consciousness of what these fashions are good for. It’s all nonetheless a manually pushed course of.
Like going to the grocery store in your city and looking at aisles of cereal and completely different sauces, the common ChatGPT consumer is presently confronted with an overabundance of selection.
Hopefully any hypothetical OpenAI router seamlessly helps direct them to the correct mannequin product for his or her wants, after they want it — like a trusty shopkeeper exhibiting as much as free you out of your product paralysis.
