OpenAI walked back its latest release after users flagged GPT-5 for sounding flat, hallucinating more, and losing creative spark. The fix? Rolling back to the friendlier GPT-4o.

Head-to-head tests told a nuanced story: GPT-5 nailed accuracy and structure across most prompts. But when the task called for style or depth, GPT-4o brought the warmth and richer detail.