OpenAI released a new lightweight, free-to-use AI model called o3-mini on Friday that is capable of humanlike reasoning and makes gains in efficiency, Bloomberg reported.
The new o3-mini is a successor to the company's more powerful version, o3, released in December last year. OpenAI had said that o3-mini would be released by the end of January 2025. Both models are meant to answer complicated questions related to topics such as coding, math and science.
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The company said the new model is available through its ChatGPT AI chatbot to free users, paid ChatGPT Plus users, and those who pay for its Pro and Team services.
The new model is also available through OpenAI's application programming interface or API. The company will offer it to enterprise users in a week.
OpenAI's new release coincides with industry-wide panic triggered by the disruption caused by the release of DeepSeek, a Chinese company's AI chatbot. DeepSeek is an open-source model that is considered cost-efficient compared to AI models developed in the US.
The Chinese company claimed that its AI model outperformed leading US developers on a range of industry benchmarks by answering questions with general knowledge and completing mathematical tasks. The claimed success of its cost-efficient model created a larger discussion about the price and value of US-based models.
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Sam Altman on DeepSeek
“DeepSeek's R1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they're able to deliver for the price,” the CEO of OpenAI wrote on X, adding that it was invigorating to have a competitor. He also expressed confidence in his AI startup’s ability to deliver better models.
{{/usCountry}}“DeepSeek's R1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they're able to deliver for the price,” the CEO of OpenAI wrote on X, adding that it was invigorating to have a competitor. He also expressed confidence in his AI startup’s ability to deliver better models.
{{/usCountry}}“We will obviously deliver much better models and also it's legit invigorating to have a new competitor!” Altman said. He hinted that OpenAI would reshuffle its planned releases to keep up with market demands, but ultimately keep its focus on its research roadmap to AGI or artificial general intelligence, a type of artificial intelligence that matches or surpasses human cognitive capabilities.
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“We will pull up some releases. But mostly we are excited to continue to execute on our research roadmap and believe more compute is more important now than ever before to succeed at our mission,” said the CEO of OpenAI.