OpenAI Officially Launches GPT-4.1 — and Immediately Closes the Safety Discussion
A new model arrives, the old one disappears, and there are more questions than tokens.
A new model arrives, the old one disappears, and there are more questions than tokens.
OpenAI has officially released the GPT-4.1 and GPT-4.1 mini models in ChatGPT. The company announced this in a post on X. The update affects both paid and free plans: Plus, Pro, and Team subscribers now have access to GPT-4.1, while the lightweight mini version is available to all users. At the same time, the previous GPT-4.0 mini model has been removed from the service, as stated in the official release notes for GPT-4.1.
The new models are especially useful for programmers: GPT-4.1 follows instructions more accurately, is faster than GPT-4o, and is more effective at writing and debugging code. While the release was available through the API back in April, the models have only now become directly accessible in the ChatGPT interface.
However, the launch of GPT-4.1 previously sparked criticism in the research community. The reason was the absence of a safety report, which typically accompanies new models. In response, OpenAI explained that GPT-4.1 is not a so-called "frontier model" and does not require the same level of evaluation. According to Johannes Heidecke, head of system safety at OpenAI, "GPT-4.1 does not introduce new modalities or ways of interacting with the model and does not surpass o3 in terms of intelligence. This means that while safety considerations remain significant, they are different from those applied to frontier models."
In the wake of the release, OpenAI has promised greater transparency. The company has launched a new Safety Evaluations Hub and announced plans to publish internal safety evaluation results for AI models more frequently.
On the same day, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI is close to acquiring Windsurf, a leading startup in AI tools for programming. The deal could be worth $3 billion, according to the agency. This move would strengthen OpenAI’s position amid rising competition: notably, Google has updated its Gemini chatbot, adding GitHub integration.
