In a major leap forward for artificial intelligence, OpenAI has officially launched its latest OpenAI AI reasoning models — o3 and o4-mini — built to handle complex problem-solving with greater precision than ever before.
The newly unveiled OpenAI AI reasoning models are engineered to mimic human-like thinking by pausing to “work through” questions before offering responses. OpenAI claims that o3 is its most advanced reasoning system to date, outperforming all prior models in critical areas like mathematics, coding, scientific reasoning, and even visual understanding.
Meanwhile, o4-mini delivers a balanced approach for developers — offering impressive performance while optimizing for speed and cost, two make-or-break factors for real-world AI applications.
For the first time, these OpenAI AI reasoning models aren’t limited to just text responses. Both o3 and o4-mini are equipped to leverage tools such as web browsing, Python code execution, image processing, and even AI image generation inside ChatGPT. Subscribers to OpenAI’s Plus, Pro, and Team plans can start using these capabilities right away.
One of the biggest breakthroughs with these OpenAI AI reasoning models is their ability to “think with images.” Users can upload everything from hand-drawn sketches to low-resolution diagrams, and the models will integrate this visual information into their reasoning process before generating a reply. This opens new doors for technical problem-solving, creative work, and educational use cases.
Developers and businesses can also access o3, o4-mini, and the enhanced o4-mini-high through OpenAI’s Chat Completions API and Responses API, unlocking advanced reasoning capabilities for their own AI-powered tools.
As for performance, the o3 model has set a new industry benchmark on SWE-bench verified — a leading AI coding test — scoring 69.1%. Its sibling, o4-mini, achieved an equally impressive 68.1%, leaving rivals like Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet trailing at 62.3%.
Despite the cutting-edge improvements, OpenAI is pricing the models competitively. O3 is available at $10 per million input tokens and $40 per million output tokens, while o4-mini matches the o3-mini price tag at $1.10 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens.
OpenAI isn’t stopping there. The company teased an upcoming release of o3-pro — a more powerful version of o3 that uses additional computing resources to deliver even sharper answers — exclusively for ChatGPT Pro subscribers.
CEO Sam Altman also hinted that o3 and o4-mini might mark the final chapter in the standalone OpenAI AI reasoning models lineup before the highly anticipated launch of GPT-5, which promises to unify reasoning models and traditional language models into one sophisticated AI system.
With o3 and o4-mini now live, the AI arms race continues to heat up as OpenAI sharpens its edge against Google, Meta, Anthropic, and xAI in the global pursuit of artificial general intelligence.
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