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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced Tuesday that GPT-5 will arrive “probably sometime this summer” while signaling that the company may introduce advertising to ChatGPT.
“I don’t know exactly when,” Altman told former OpenAI employee Andrew Mayne during the June 18 interview.
The release depends on OpenAI meeting internal benchmarks that remain undisclosed. The company won’t launch GPT-5 until those standards are satisfied.
Early testers have called GPT-5 “materially better” than GPT-4, according to Business Insider reports. The new model will combine GPT-4o’s conversational abilities with o3’s advanced reasoning into a single system.
Altman also addressed potential advertising on ChatGPT, saying he’s “not totally against” the idea but warned it would require careful implementation. He emphasized that modifying the AI’s responses based on advertiser payments “would be a trust-destroying moment.”
Any future ads would appear outside the model’s actual responses, Altman explained. “The burden of proof there, I think, would have to be very high,” he said.
This advertising pivot comes as OpenAI faces mounting pressure to expand revenue beyond its core enterprise customers. The company wants to start monetizing free users by next year, according to leaked business plans.
The summer timeline announcement comes amid significant external pressures. A court recently ordered the company to preserve all ChatGPT data as part of a copyright dispute with The New York Times.
Altman called the court order “a crazy overreach” and stressed that “privacy needs to be the core principle of using AI.”
OpenAI also struggles with naming conventions for its models. The current lineup includes GPT-4, 4-turbo, 4o, and o3 variants, creating confusion for users about which version to choose.
“Should we just keep calling those GPT-5 […] or should we call those 51253?” Altman asked, revealing internal debates about future branding.
The company’s primary revenue comes from enterprise customers buying premium ChatGPT versions. GPT-5 represents a crucial release for maintaining that business momentum.
Altman discussed the evolving definition of artificial general intelligence, noting that standards proposed five years ago have been “far surpassed” by current models. However, he maintains that true superintelligence—systems capable of independent scientific discoveries—hasn’t been achieved.
The summer timeline reflects OpenAI’s cautious approach after previous overpromises. Unlike earlier releases with firm dates, GPT-5’s launch depends on technical milestones that even Altman admits are uncertain.
