Introducing GPT-5: Smarter, sharper, and more sarcastic

By now, most marketers know the cycle. Big AI model launches. Benchmark bragging. Glossy demos. A promise that this time, your prompts will be met with flawless prose and zero hallucinations. Then, within days, you’re knee-deep in inexplicable weirdness and wondering if the upgrade was worth it.

OpenAI’s new GPT-5 is here, and it’s aiming to break that cycle — or at least smooth some of the rougher edges. I want to say one thing up front – this is not an epochal, universe shifting moment. It appears to be a substantive upgrade, but more incremental than exponential, at least based on my testing so far. If this observation bears out, that has interesting implications relating to the speed of AI progress. 

It’s definitely a more unified experience than the old constellation of GPT models, which often felt like switching between three different interns mid-project. Now, GPT-5 and GPT-5 Thinking behave more like different gears on the same bike. You still need to pedal, but the ride is smoother. And in the spirit of putting it through its paces — and hitting deadline — I’ve used GPT5 to help write this article.

First impressions: Less chaos, more control

One of GPT-5’s most obvious wins is coherence. No more realising halfway through a coffee shop search that you’re still in “o3 mode” and need to restart the query. The structure now mirrors Google’s Gemini 2.5 approach — a core model and a thinking variant — and marketers used to juggling tools will appreciate not having to keep a mental map of which version they’re talking to.