In a recent Reddit AMA (ask me anything), OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, along with some other top OpenAI executives, dropped a number of hints about the company’s future, and what to expect from ChatGPT next year.
Firstly, when asked if there would be a ChatGPT-5 Altman doubled down on his “fake news” response on X recently to an article talking of its imminent release: “We have some very good releases coming later this year! Nothing that we are going to call GPT-5, though”, he replied. The phrasing “this year” does indicate that a new LLM could be released by OpenAI very soon though.
Agents are coming
It's been a busy week for OpenAI, with the release of Advanced Voice mode on the desktop app versions of ChatGPT and a new ChatGPT search, which even challenges Google. When asked about the value of the recently released ChatGPT search compared to traditional search engines, like Google, Altman was enthusiastic: “For many queries, I find it to be a way faster/easier way to get the information I'm looking for. I think we'll see this especially for queries that require more complex research. I also look forward to a future where a search query can dynamically render a custom web page in response!”
When asked about the next update to Dall-E 3, the image generator that’s part of ChatGPT, Altman was non committal: “The next update will be worth the wait! But we don't have a release plan yet." So it doesn’t look like much will be happening on the image generation front for a while.
Real intelligence
One area where ChatGPT is being challenged by its rivals is in AI that can perform tasks autonomously. We’ve seen Google make inroads into this area with its Jarvis AI. When asked if ChatGPT will be able to perform tasks on its own, Altman replied “IMHO this is going to be a big theme in 2025”, which indicates the direction OpenAI will be taking next year.
Referring again to autonomous AI, when asked what the next big breakthrough for ChatGPT would be, Altman replied: “We will have better and better models, but i think the thing that will feel like the next giant breakthrough will be agents”. Agents are autonomous AI bots that can perform tasks for you.
Perhaps the most interesting comment from Altman was about the future of AGI - artificial general intelligence. Seen by many as the ‘real’ AI, this is an artificial intelligence model that could rival or even exceed human intelligence. Altman has previously declared that we could have AGI within "a few thousand days".
When asked by a Reddit user whether AGI is achievable with known hardware or it will take something entirely different, Altman replied: “We believe it is achievable with current hardware.”
