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There is a particular kind of silence that follows when a familiar voice goes quiet. For many ChatGPT users, GPT-4o was that voice: warmer, looser, sometimes unpredictable in a way that sparked creative leaps. OpenAI has announced it will retire GPT-4o along with several other legacy models, and the change takes effect on February 13, 2026.
The lineup being removed from the ChatGPT interface includes GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, o4-m`ini, plus GPT-5 Instant and GPT-5 Thinking. OpenAI says the decision came after the rollout of GPT-5.2, which met the company’s performance benchmarks. For now, the retirement applies to the ChatGPT product only; the API remains unchanged at this stage.
Why remove a popular model? Part of the answer is adoption. OpenAI reports that most users have already migrated to GPT-5.2, and only about 0.1 percent of daily users still pick GPT-4o. Part of it is product simplification—fewer active model variants make it easier to focus engineering and safety efforts. And part of it is what happens when a successor simply outperforms expectations: the roadmap shifts.
But nostalgia and preference are not trivial. GPT-4o developed a reputation for a conversational cadence many found appealing. It was the go-to for brainstorming and for people who liked an assistant that felt a little less buttoned-up. When OpenAI briefly removed it in the past, user backlash pushed the company to restore the model, a reminder that model behavior matters as much as raw capability.
OpenAI says that user feedback helped shape GPT-5.1 and GPT-5.2, and that the team tried to preserve positive qualities users praised while tightening controls and aligning the models with safety goals. That trade-off is visible in how GPT-5.2 behaves: more conservative, less flighty, and arguably more predictable. For some workflows, predictability is a clear win. For others, the spark of an unpredictable reply was the whole point.
To bridge that gap, OpenAI added a Personality feature to ChatGPT so people can tune tone and style more directly. It is not an exact clone of GPT-4o’s vibe, but it’s an attempt to give users some of the individuality they loved without keeping older, harder-to-maintain engines in production.
What should users do now? If you rely on GPT-4o for creative ideation or for a specific conversational tone, plan ahead. OpenAI acknowledged that a small subset of Plus and Pro subscribers asked for extra time to migrate workflows. Expect to test GPT-5.2 and the Personality settings, and to adapt prompts where necessary. If you build on the API, keep an eye on official notices; the immediate change is limited to ChatGPT, but broader deprecations can follow.
There’s another angle: this is a window into how AI products evolve. Models get retired not because they failed, but because the product needs to move toward a balance of capability, safety, and maintainability. That balance won’t please everyone. Some users will mourn GPT-4o’s unpredictability. Others will welcome a steadier assistant that errs less often.
OpenAI says personalization and safer model behaviors remain priorities. Expect more iterative refinements — not a final verdict on what an AI assistant should sound like. Which voice will win you over next? That choice is now part of the experiment.
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