OpenAI launches new, smarter model. Meet o3-pro.

OpenAI has a new reasoning model called o3-pro that the company says is its most intelligent yet.

On Tuesday the ChatGPT maker announced o3-pro on X, sharing some details on its improvement over o3. OpenAI highlighted better performance in "science, education, programming, data analysis, and writing" and also said reviewers rated it higher on "clarity, comprehensiveness, instruction-following, and accuracy."

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o3-pro is available in the API and to ChatGPT Pro and Team users, with Enterprise and Edu availability rolling out next week.

OpenAI's o3-pro is the newest addition to its family of reasoning models, which break down tasks into steps for ostensibly more accurate and reliable responses, as opposed to conventional LLMs. In this regard, reasoning models like o3-pro are considered better for complex tasks and OpenAI says o3-pro "excels at math, science, and coding." OpenAI posted benchmark evaluations indicating o3-pro surpasses o1-pro and o3 in these areas.

Researchers from Apple recently found some notable limitations in reasoning models, including OpenAI's o3-mini. When prompted to solve the classic Tower of Hanoi problem, which involves moving discs from one peg to another, the models struggled as complexity increased and even gave up despite having more computing power at their disposal.

The research made waves amongst the AI community as evidence that reasoning models aren't as smart as they're hyped to be. However, experts also pointed out that the research tested a very specific problem, and it didn't compare the results of humans and reasoning models on the same problems. So, it's not a definitive conclusion that AI tools are completely overhyped, but the findings do suggest that they're not necessarily the best models for every kind of task.

o3-pro has access to tools in ChatGPT, including web search, Python, visual analysis of documents, and personalized responses with memory support. But it doesn't support image generation or canvas, OpenAI's interface for working on projects, according to the release notes. Responses will also take longer because o3-pro has access to tools.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.