OpenAI has announced that next month it will retire several artificial intelligence models, including GPT-4o, in its popular chatbot ChatGPT. This was reported by CNBC.

The startup launched GPT-4o in May 2024, and its "friendly communication style" was extremely popular among a segment of paid users.

The company faced backlash from users last August when it briefly suspended access to GPT-4o following the launch of the new GPT-5 model.

OpenAI quickly restored access to GPT-4o for paid users, and CEO Sam Altman promised to "give advance notice" if the company ever decided to discontinue support for the model.

"We understand that losing access to GPT-4o will be unpleasant for some users, and we did not make this decision lightly. Discontinuing support for models is never easy, but it allows us to focus on improving the models that most people are using today," OpenAI stated in its blog on Thursday.

OpenAI announced that only 0.1% of users utilize the GPT-4o model daily, and that the "vast majority" of people are already using model GPT-5.2.

In addition to GPT-4o, OpenAI stated that GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and OpenAI o4-mini will also be retired in ChatGPT.

OpenAI revealed that it would begin testing advertisements in ChatGPT in the coming weeks.