Project Strawberry, OpenAI’s codename for its new reasoning-focused AI ChatGPT, was originally planned for release in the fall, but now reports suggest it could arrive before the iPhone 16 on September 20.
According to The Information, the new ChatGPT service could be launched within the next two weeks. Two testers of the new AI model claim that the original launch date has been brought forward in order to pioneer a new generation of AI tools.
Strawberry will be a standalone offering at launch, but we're not quite sure how it will be implemented in ChatGPT yet. Testers claim it could be a “drop-down menu of AI models that customers can choose from to power ChatGPT” with Strawberry able to think, respond in more detail, and take longer than GPT-4o.
“The initial version will only be able to receive and produce text, not images, meaning it is not yet multimodal like other OpenAI models.” A clear shortcoming compared to other LLMs on the market, such as Google Gemini.
The Information expects pricing to be slightly different than ChatGPT, expecting “rate caps that restrict users to a maximum number of messages per hour, with the potential for a higher price tier that is quicker to respond, according to another person with knowledge of the product.”
So what exactly is Project Strawberry?
The Strawberry project is a new AI model from the folks at OpenAI with a new approach that allows for reasoning and “thinking,” making it perfect for mathematical equations. The AI model has been used internally to solve puzzles that ChatGPT would struggle with, such as New York Times Connections, another hit word game like Wordle.
Last month, The Information received details from two testers (we can't confirm they're the same ones featured in this report) that Project Strawberry could launch in October or November, but it seems OpenAI has decided to quickly change the planned launch window. It's still unclear whether Project Strawberry will be part of GPT-5, but we may not have much time to find out.
