OpenAI plans to phase out GPT-4.5, its largest-ever AI model, from its API

OpenAI has announced that it will be phasing out the availability of GPT-4.5, its largest AI model, via its API. This decision comes just a few months after the release of GPT-4.5 in late February.

Developers will still be able to access GPT-4.5 through OpenAI’s API until July 14th. After that date, they will need to switch to another model from OpenAI’s lineup. The company is recommending GPT-4.1, which was launched recently, as the preferred alternative.

According to an OpenAI spokesperson, GPT-4.1 offers similar or better performance than GPT-4.5 in key areas, all while being more cost-effective. The decision to phase out GPT-4.5 is part of OpenAI’s strategy to focus on developing future models.

It’s important to note that GPT-4.5 will still be available on ChatGPT for paying customers in a research preview capacity. The model is only being removed from the API.

Code-named Orion, GPT-4.5 was trained using significant computing power and data, surpassing any of OpenAI’s previous models. While it excels in writing and persuasiveness compared to its predecessor, GPT-4o, it still falls short of “frontier-level” performance on certain industry benchmarks.

OpenAI acknowledges that running GPT-4.5 is costly. The model is priced at $75 per million input tokens and $150 per million output tokens, making it one of the most expensive offerings from OpenAI. This led to the evaluation of whether to continue serving GPT-4.5 via the API in the long term.