All the updates and changes in ChatGPT-5

Like having a genius in your pocket: OpenAI's revolutionary GPT-5 can now do more tasks and access your personal calendar, but it's not perfect.

OpenAI has launched its next artificial intelligence model known as GPT-5, which will be available to all 700 million ChatGPT users immediately.

It has been likened to having “access to a PhD-level expert in your pocket”.

This is what Australians need to know:

WHAT IMPROVEMENTS DOES IT OFFER?

OpenAI said GPT-5, the technology that powers its AI chatbot, has intelligence it compared to “a PhD-level expert.

It said it enables it to excels in writing, health queries and finance.

When it comes to health questions, it will flag “potential concerns” including serious physical or mental illness.

It can now write or code software on demand to help develop websites and apps.

It is also said to have fewer factual errors or hallucinations, and carries an increased creative writing ability.

Instead of “refusing” a prompt that breaches its guidelines outright, it will attempt to give a reply within safety guidelines.

And if it can’t, it will explain why it cannot help.

“GPT-5 is really the first time that I think one of our mainline models has felt like you can ask a legitimate expert, a PhD-level expert, anything,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said at a press briefing.

“One of the coolest things it can do is write you good instantaneous software. This idea of software on demand is going to be one of the defining features of the GPT-5 era.”

The agent feature in ChatGPT that can research restaurant availability and online shopping will also be able to access users’ Gmail, Google calendar and contacts, if allowed by the user.

According to Reuters, two reviewers said while the new model impressed them by being able to code and solve science and math problems, but they think GPT-5’s advancement is not as big as previous instalments.

Regardless, Altman said it was a “huge improvement” on its predecessors.

Sam Altman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, OpenAI. Picture: AP

IS IT PERFECT OR WILL IT CHANGE AGAIN?

Altman admitted GPT-5 has not reached its goal yet.

“[It is] missing something quite important, many things quite important,” he said, referring to the model’s inability to “continuously learn”.

He described it as “generally intelligent” and a “significant step on the path to AGI” but had not reached it yet by most people’s definition.

“I think the way that most of us define AGI, we’re still missing something quite important, many things quite important. But one big one is … this is not a model that continuously learns as it’s deployed from things it finds, which is something that, to me, feels like it should be part of AGI,” he said.

WHAT ARE TECH GIANTS GOING TO EXPAND INTO AI?

The world’s biggest AI developers – Alphabet, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft, which supports OpenAI – have increased capital expenditures to pay for AI data centres, and have spent nearly $US400 billion this fiscal year, Reuters reports.

IS CHATGPT-5 FREE?

Use of the free version of GPT-5-backed ChatGPT will be capped, and those on the premium Pro package will get unlimited access.