In contrast to the previous releases of OpenAI's models, GPT-4o and o1, Orion will not be immediately accessible to the general public through ChatGPT. Instead, OpenAI plans to initially grant access to select partner organizations, enabling them to develop their own products and features utilizing the model, as confirmed by a reliable source familiar with the strategy.
Additionally, a source has informed The Verge that Microsoft engineers, OpenAI’s primary collaborator for AI model deployment, are preparing to host Orion on Azure as soon as November. While Orion is regarded within OpenAI as the successor to GPT-4, it remains uncertain whether the company will refer to it as GPT-5 in public. As always, the release timeline is subject to adjustments and potential delays. Both OpenAI and Microsoft have chosen not to comment on this matter.
An OpenAI executive has hinted that Orion could be up to 100 times more powerful than GPT-4; it is distinct from the o1 reasoning model that was released in September. The company aims to integrate its large language models over time to develop a more advanced model that may eventually be termed artificial general intelligence, or AGI.
Previous reports indicated that OpenAI was utilizing o1, codenamed Strawberry, to generate synthetic data for training Orion. In September, OpenAI researchers hosted a celebratory event to mark the completion of training for the new model, according to a source familiar with the situation.
This timeline coincides with a cryptic message posted on X by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who expressed excitement for the upcoming visibility of winter constellations. When queried about Altman’s post, ChatGPT o1-preview suggests that he is alluding to Orion, the winter constellation that is most prominent in the night sky from November to February, although it also inaccurately claims that the letters can be rearranged to spell “ORION.”
The launch of this upcoming model is particularly significant for OpenAI, which has recently completed a landmark $6.6 billion funding round that necessitates a transition to a for-profit structure. Additionally, the organization is facing considerable staff changes, with CTO Mira Murati recently announcing her exit, alongside Bob McGrew, the chief research officer, and Barret Zoph, the vice president of post-training.