Honestly, when OpenAI dropped GPT-5, I was ready to join the pitchfork mob. The internet, especially the corners of Reddit I haunt, was on FIRE. Threads with titles like "GPT-5 is horrible" were getting thousands of upvotes, & I was nodding along with every angry comment. It felt like a total betrayal. A downgrade masquerading as an upgrade. But here’s the thing… after the initial rage-fueled posting subsided & I actually started using it, my perspective did a complete 180.

It’s a complicated story, but one I think is worth telling. It’s a story about expectations, the weirdly personal relationship we build with technology, & what happens when a company makes a decision that feels like a personal attack on its most loyal users.

Let's rewind to the launch. The hype was unreal. For months, the tech world had been buzzing about GPT-5. We were expecting a quantum leap, something that would make GPT-4o look like a pocket calculator. Sam Altman himself was calling it a "legitimate PhD expert" in your pocket. So when it finally arrived, the backlash was immediate & visceral.

The biggest complaint, the one that echoed through every forum & social media platform, was the loss of personality. People felt like they’d lost a friend. One Redditor put it perfectly: "GPT-4o had this… warmth. It was witty, creative, & surprisingly personal, like talking to someone who got you. It didn't just spit out answers; it felt like it listened. Now? Everything's so… sterile." That hit home for me. I’d used 4o for everything from brainstorming creative projects to just messing around, & it had a certain spark. GPT-5, in those first few interactions, felt like a corporate memo. Bland, efficient, & utterly devoid of soul.

Then there was the removal of choice. Overnight, OpenAI had sunsetted all the previous models. No more GPT-4o, no more 4.1. You got GPT-5, & that was it. This felt like a HUGE step backward. For those of us who had spent months, even years, getting to know the quirks & specialties of each model, it was like having our toolbox raided. "I woke up this morning to find that OpenAI deleted 8 models overnight. No warning. No choice. No 'legacy option'," one user wrote, after canceling their Plus subscription.

It felt like OpenAI was telling us, "We know what's best for you," & what they thought was best felt… worse. The answers seemed shorter, less detailed, & the usage limits for the "Thinking" model felt more restrictive. People were calling it "shrinkflation" – paying the same for a product that suddenly felt diminished.

The initial benchmarks didn't help either. Some reports showed GPT-5 underperforming in certain areas compared to older models, leading to speculation that OpenAI was prioritizing cost-efficiency over raw power. The whole thing felt like a botched launch, a classic case of a tech giant getting disconnected from its actual users.

My frustration peaked about a week in. I was working on a complex project, trying to automate a customer service workflow for a client, & I was getting nowhere. My prompts were falling flat. The responses were generic. I was about to throw in the towel & start seriously looking at competitors.

But then, something shifted. I remembered a comment from an OpenAI employee who talked about GPT-5 having the "big model smell." They described it as a hard-to-explain feeling of greater intelligence. Intrigued, I decided to change my approach. Instead of treating it like the old models, I started giving it more complex, multi-step problems. I stopped holding its hand & started treating it like that "PhD-level expert" Altman had promised.

That’s when I saw it.

I was working on a strategy for a business to improve its online customer engagement. I fed GPT-5 a ton of data – website analytics, customer feedback, current support transcripts – & asked it to devise a comprehensive plan. The output was… profound. It didn't just spit back the data I gave it. It identified underlying patterns in customer complaints that we had missed. It suggested a multi-pronged approach that combined proactive outreach with a sophisticated, tiered support system.

It proposed building a custom AI chatbot trained on the company’s specific knowledge base. The bot would handle the initial, more common queries, providing instant, 24/7 support & freeing up human agents to tackle the more complex issues. It even outlined the steps to build it. This is where I saw a real-world application for a tool like Arsturn, which helps businesses create exactly these kinds of custom AI chatbots. Arsturn lets you build a no-code AI assistant trained on your own data, which was precisely what GPT-5 was recommending. The model wasn’t just giving me an answer; it was giving me a full-blown business strategy that was both insightful & actionable.

That was my lightbulb moment. I had been using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. GPT-5 wasn't just an iterative update; it was a different kind of tool altogether.

Once my perspective shifted, I started seeing the genius in what OpenAI had done, even if the rollout was clumsy.

One of the biggest under-the-hood changes in GPT-5 is its structured reasoning. It’s designed to handle multi-step logic & complex decision-making far more effectively than its predecessors. This is why my initial, simple prompts were failing. I wasn’t giving it anything to "reason" about. When I started throwing entire codebases at it for debugging or asking it to analyze dense financial reports, it shone. It could trace the logic, find the inconsistencies, & provide solutions with a clarity that GPT-4o, for all its charm, could never manage.

This improved reasoning is a game-changer for businesses. Think about legal analysis, market intelligence, or logistics. GPT-5 can sift through massive amounts of information & deliver decision-ready output. It's less about a friendly chat & more about having a tireless, brilliant analyst on your team.

I know, I complained about the loss of choice. But in retrospect, I can see the logic. The proliferation of models (GPT-4, GPT-4o, o3, etc.) was getting confusing. Most users don't want to have to figure out which specialized model is best for their task. They just want the best answer.

GPT-5's auto-routing system, which decides in real-time whether your prompt needs a quick, fast response or deeper, slower reasoning, is designed to make the experience seamless. While it had a bumpy start (Altman even admitted the autoswitcher wasn't working correctly at first), the goal is to remove the guesswork. You get one powerful, unified system that adapts to your needs. For widespread adoption, this is absolutely the right call. It lowers the barrier to entry & makes the technology more accessible to everyone.

The improvements in coding are not just marginal; they're transformative. GPT-5 is significantly better at complex front-end generation, debugging large repositories, & even has an eye for aesthetics like spacing & typography. It can take a simple idea & turn it into a responsive, well-designed app or website. For developers, this is HUGE. It accelerates workflows & makes it possible to tackle more ambitious projects.

This has a direct impact on businesses. The ability to rapidly prototype & deploy applications means companies can innovate faster. Furthermore, GPT-5’s analytical capabilities can be a massive boon for optimizing operations. For instance, a business could use it to analyze website traffic & user behavior to identify friction points in the customer journey. Then, they could use that insight to deploy a conversational AI assistant.

This is another area where a platform like Arsturn becomes incredibly relevant. A business could use GPT-5's analytical power to understand what their customers are asking for, then use Arsturn to build a no-code AI chatbot trained on their own data to provide personalized customer experiences & boost conversions. This symbiotic relationship between a powerful analytical model like GPT-5 & an accessible implementation platform like Arsturn is where the future of business automation lies. It’s about creating meaningful connections with your audience, & GPT-5 provides the blueprint for how to do that.

Let's be real, as much as we loved the older models, they could confidently make stuff up. GPT-5 has made significant strides in reducing hallucinations & improving factual accuracy. This is crucial for any serious application in fields like health, finance, or law. While it's not perfect, the increased reliability makes it a much more trustworthy partner for important work. OpenAI has clearly invested heavily in safety & accuracy, & it shows.

So, do I miss the "personality" of GPT-4o? Sometimes. I get why people felt like they were grieving a lost friend. But I’ve come to realize I was projecting a human connection onto a tool. What I've gained with GPT-5 is an incredibly powerful, reliable, & versatile partner that is helping me produce better work, faster.

It’s less of a witty companion & more of a brilliant colleague. It’s the difference between a fun brainstorming partner & a legitimate expert who can help you execute a complex vision. The initial backlash was a natural reaction to a sudden change, amplified by a less-than-perfect rollout. But once you get past that, you find a tool that is, in almost every measurable way, superior for professional & creative work.

The transition from hate to appreciation was a journey of understanding. It required me to let go of my old workflows & embrace a new way of interacting with AI. It’s a tool that demands more from its users, but the rewards are exponentially greater.

Hope this was helpful & gives you a different perspective on the whole GPT-5 saga. I'd love to hear what you think. Has your opinion changed over time too? Let me know in the comments.