On Monday, OpenAI announced the GPT-4.1 model family, the newest series of AI-language models that brings a context tram of 1 million token to OpenAi for the first time and continues a long tradition of highly confusing AI model names. Three confusing new names, in fact: GPT -4.1, GPT -4.1 Mini and GPT -4.1 Nano.
According to OpenAI, these models perform better than GPT-4O in various important areas. But in an unusual movement, GPT-4.1 will only be available through the API developer, not in the consumer chatgpt interface where most people deal with the technology of OpenAi.
The 1 million token context window – essentially the amount of text that the AI can process immediately – let these models take around 3000 pages of text in one conversation. This places the context windows of OpenAI on the same footing with Google's Gemini models, which have been offering comparable extensive context options for some time.
At the same time, the company has announced that it will retire the GPT-4.5 preview model in the API-a temporary offer that was launched in February that one critic called a “lemon” to July 2025 developers who are switched to something else. However, it seems that GPT-4.5 will remain in chatgpt for the time being.
So many names
If this sounds confusing, well, that's because it is. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the custom of OpenAi of terrible product names in February when discussing the route map to the long-awaited (and still theoretical) GPT-5.
“We realize how complicated our model and product offer have come,” Altman wrote on X at the time, referring to a chatgpt interface that is already printing with choices such as GPT-4O, various specialized GPT-4O versions, GPT-4O Mini, the simulated reasoning O1-Pro, O3-Pro, O3-Pro, O3-Pro, O3-Pro, O3-Pro, O3-Pro, and GPT-PRO-Mod,-Pro ,–Pro. The aforementioned goal for GPT-5 will be consolidation, a brand movement to unite O-series models and GPT series models.
So, how does the launch of another clearly numbered model, GPT-4.1, fit in that large unification plan? It's hard to say. Altman in advance shaded this kind of ambiguity in March 2024 and told Lex Friedman that the company had large releases, but was uncertain about names: “Before we talk about a GPT-5-like model that was called, or not called it, or a little worse or a little better than what you would expect …”
