OpenAI has launched its highly anticipated GPT-4.1 model family for ChatGPT users, bringing a new level of performance and functionality in artificial intelligence. The rollout includes three variants: GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and GPT-4.1 nano. However, there's a catch only ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Teams users will be able to access them. Free-tier users will remain limited to GPT-4o for now.
According to OpenAI’s announcement shared on X (formerly Twitter) and its blog, the new GPT-4.1 series introduces major gains in software engineering, instruction-following, and long-context conversation capabilities. Benchmarks indicate a 21% improvement in coding tasks and a 10.5% boost in instruction-following accuracy compared to GPT-4o.
One of the standout features of GPT-4.1 is its massive context window, capable of processing up to 1 million tokens. This allows users to feed significantly larger documents or conversations into the model without losing coherence. Additionally, the model has an updated knowledge cutoff of June 2024, a jump from GPT-4o's October 2023 limit.
OpenAI emphasizes that while the benchmarks are important, the real value of GPT-4.1 lies in its enhanced real-world application. The model has been optimized through feedback from developers and businesses using the API, focusing on utility in areas like software development, writing assistance, customer support, and research.
The GPT-4.1 mini and nano versions offer lightweight alternatives for companies needing faster results with lower costs. The mini model is reported to reduce latency by nearly 50% and cost 83% less than GPT-4o, making it ideal for use cases demanding speed and efficiency. Nano, on the other hand, is OpenAI’s most affordable model yet, designed for simple text processing tasks like autocomplete or classification. Pricing through OpenAI’s API starts at $2 per million tokens for GPT-4.1, while nano is priced from just $0.10 per million tokens. Developers also benefit from enhanced prompt caching discounts, now up to 75%, significantly reducing the cost of repeated queries.
Access to these models marks a strategic shift as OpenAI phases out older versions. GPT-4, the original ChatGPT Plus model since March 2023, has been officially discontinued. The GPT-4.5 Preview was also sunset from the API in April 2025. Although GPT-4.1 isn’t fully replacing GPT-4o in the ChatGPT interface, OpenAI is gradually incorporating several of its improvements into GPT-4o for general users. This launch positions GPT-4.1 as OpenAI’s most capable and commercially scalable model to date, but it also reinforces the company's shift toward a tiered experience offering cutting-edge AI advancements first to paying customers and enterprise users.
