Most people are using the wrong ChatGPT model without realising it. OpenAI's naming is confusing, but picking the right one can completely change your results. This guide simplifies the choices, renaming each model based on what it does best to help you get faster answers, better outputs, and unlock hidden features.
GPT-4o: The Generalist
Your fast, default, Swiss Army knife for a wide variety of everyday tasks. It's conversational, quick, and surprisingly creative.
- Quick summaries of articles or videos.
- Brainstorming ideas (e.g., blog titles, marketing angles).
- Analysing photos or visual information.
- General conversational chat and creative tasks.
- Powering customer service chatbots where speed is key.
o3: The Professor
When you need deep, multi-step reasoning. It "thinks" before it answers, researching sources and structuring its arguments logically.
- Research-heavy or academic prompts.
- Complex logic problems (e.g., maths, philosophy, legal questions).
- Business decisions or workout plans with multiple constraints.
- Any task where accuracy and nuance are more important than speed.
Deep Research Mode: The Scholar
Your personal research assistant. It scours the internet for studies, articles, and data to deliver a mini literature review, not just an answer.
- Writing research-backed blog posts or reports.
- Prepping for presentations or interviews with real data.
- Academic work that requires extensive, real-world sources.
- Answering big questions that need receipts.
GPT-4.5: The Wordsmith
A wild card that shines in one area: tone. Use it when you need writing that has rhythm, personality, or emotional weight.
- Marketing, branding, and ad copy.
- Persuasive or descriptive creative writing.
- Any task where you care more about flow and style than precision.
- Creating content with a strong, distinct voice.
GPT-4.1: The Coder
Excellent for coding and following detailed instructions. Its real superpower is its massive context window (via the API).
- Instruction-heavy tasks like refactoring code.
- Working with large codebases.
- Analysing long transcripts or legal documents.
- Any task requiring a huge amount of context.
4.1 Mini: The Intern
A junior version of The Coder. Faster, cheaper, and a bit rougher. It has the same million-token API context window, making it a fantastic budget option for long-context tasks where accuracy isn't mission-critical.
o4 Mini: The Underrated Workhorse
The perfect balance of speed, cost, and reasoning. Its logic is surprisingly close to o3, but it's much faster and cheaper via API. A great choice for real-time chatbots that need to be smarter than The Generalist.
o4 Mini High: The Mathematician
An upgrade to the Workhorse with more compute per token. Its accuracy is close to GPT-o3, making it ideal for STEM workloads, high-volume API calls, or as a fallback when your GPT-o3 quota runs out.
o3 Pro: The Oracle
The newest, most expensive, and slowest model. It thinks extensively on every single question, making it overkill for most tasks.
- Answering questions that other models fail on.
- High-stakes tasks like auditing financial spreadsheets or formal proofs.
- Final quality assurance pass in an automated agent pipeline.
- Complex business analysis with huge amounts of context.
The Bottom Line
Every model has a purpose, but most people stick with just one. If you're using the Generalist (GPT-4o) for everything, you're leaving accuracy, creativity, and powerful features on the table. Treat the model dropdown like a toolbox, not a default setting. Real optimisation comes from mixing models strategically to fit the task.
