OpenAI has released its new LLM model, GPT-5. The generative AI model—which will be available to consumers for free and will power the latest version of the popular ChatGPT bot—is OpenAI’s “smartest, fastest, most useful model yet, with built-in thinking that puts expert-level intelligence in everyone’s hands,” the company noted on Thursday.

If you’re wondering what all the hoopla is about, and what makes GPT-5 better than, or different from, the company’s previous GPT models (or rival AI models like Claude, Gemini, or Llama), here’s a quick rundown of some of the most important new features and functions available in GPT-5:

Easier to use

Recent versions of OpenAI products have forced users to choose the type of model they wanted to use for different tasks: OpenAI’s o family of “reasoning” models for complicated research, or the standard GPT for speedy results. GPT-5 uses a “real-time router” that automates the process, picking the right tool for the right job so you don’t have to. 

Special personalities

ChatGPT will now let users choose from four different preset “personalities” when they interact with it: “cynic,” “robot,” “listener,” and “nerd.” These personalities are intended to make using the chatbot feel more natural and context-appropriate. If you want a bit more sarcasm, choose cynic, whereas if you’re using it for work, the “efficient and blunt” robot persona might be better.

Fewer hallucinations

OpenAI claims that GPT-5 is less prone to “hallucinating,” or inventing information. According to OpenAI, GPT-5 was 45% less likely to contain a factual error than GPT-4o in tests in which it had web search enabled and used anonymized prompts; when “thinking,” GPT-5 was 80% less likely to contain an error than OpenAI o3. But that still doesn’t eradicate hallucinations, and, as Mashable explains, it means that GPT-5 will still hallucinate one out of every 10 times on common tasks.

A better writer

According to OpenAI, GPT-5 is a much better writer than its predecessors, producing more “compelling, resonant writing with literary depth and rhythm.” The company provided side-by-side comparisons of GPT-5’s output versus that of GPT-4o for things like wedding toasts and poems. 

A better coder

While previous versions of GPT had software coding capabilities, OpenAI says GPT-5 brings improved ease and sophistication to its “vibe coding” functionality, allowing users to “create beautiful and responsive websites, apps, and games” in a single prompt.

Agentic capabilities

GPT-5 integrates with Gmail and Google Calendar to assist with scheduling, reminders, email follow‑ups, and other productivity tasks. (This capability will be initially limited to users of the company’s paid “pro” membership.)

Health

LLMs have become a popular way for people to get medical information and health advice. OpenAI says GPT-5 scores higher than any of its previous models on the HealthBench test, and that it acts more like “an active thought partner, proactively flagging potential concerns and asking questions to give more helpful answers.” Of course, OpenAI also points out that it does not replace a medical professional.

Your mileage may vary

Those are just a few of the new features and improvements, which will provide plenty of opportunity for consumers and businesses to experiment with the latest model and compare it with their current go-to models. Whether it represents a major leap forward, or more of an iterative improvement will become clear in the days and weeks ahead as outside experts test the model and real-world users play around with it. Early testers interviewed by Reuters said the improvement from GPT-4 to GPT-5 is “not as large” as the one from GPT-3 to GPT-4. AI expert and often-skeptic Gary Marcus says: “Fans will still find something to rejoice in, but GPT-5 is not the huge leap forward people long expected.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Hi, it’s Alexandra Sternlicht filling in for Allie today. Figma’s sensational IPO last week resurrected longstanding debates about IPO pricing and first day pops—an unsurprising reaction to the newly listed stock’s 333% surge in its first days of trading. As investors dissect the offering (and as Figma’s stock settles back a bit, falling 27% on Monday), an equally important set of questions are in the air: Will Figma’s debut entice other startups to jump into the fray, bringing an end to the tech industry’s IPO drought? And if so, who’s next?

“Having positive IPOs is a good signal for everybody,” says Kirsten Green, founder and managing partner at Forerunner Ventures, whose portfolio company Chime recently went public and experienced a 37% pop in stock price on its first day of trading. (Forerunner also has investments in public company Hims & Hers and late stage private companies including Oura.)

Green floats the idea of startups thinking of an IPO as the Series A of their new lives in the public markets—a notion she thinks could be “a motivator to people’s willingness, and maybe even eagerness, to go public.” (As if on cue, HeartFlow, a medical technology company, filed an S-1 for its IPO at a $1.3 billion valuation the day after Figma’s debut.)

There’s a long list of late-stage VC-backed tech companies with strong customer bases that Wall Street investment bankers would love to take public. Many of these multibillion-dollar companies, including Databricks, Klarna, Stripe, and SpaceX, have been subjects of IPO speculation for years. And then, of course, there’s the crop of richly valued AI startups, from OpenAI and Anthropic, to Elon Musk’s xAI. 

Those companies will likely continue to be in the spotlight, but in conversations I had with several investors following Figma’s debut, other names came up as more likely to IPO sooner including Canva, Revolut, Midjourney, Motive, and Anduril. Click here to read more about the post-Figma IPO watchlist.

Alexandra Sternlicht
X: @iamsternlicht
Email: [email protected]

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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Figma’s sensational IPO last week resurrected longstanding debates about IPO pricing and first day pops—an unsurprising reaction to the newly listed stock’s 333% surge in its first days of trading. As investors dissect the offering (and as Figma’s stock settles back a bit, falling 27% on Monday), other key questions have emerged: Will Figma’s debut entice other startups to jump into the fray, bringing an end to the tech industry’s IPO drought? And if so, who’s next?

There’s a long list of late-stage VC-backed tech companies with strong customer bases that Wall Street investment bankers would love to take public. Many of these multi-billion dollar companies, including Databricks, Klarna, Stripe, and SpaceX, have been subjects of IPO speculation for years. And then of course, there’s the crop of richly valued AI startups, from OpenAI and Anthropic, to Elon Musk’s xAI. 

Those companies will likely continue to be in the spotlight, but in conversations I had with several investors following Figma’s debut, other names came up as more likely to IPO sooner including Canva, Revolut, Midjourney, Motive, and Anduril. 

“Having positive IPOs is a good signal for everybody,” says Kirsten Green, founder and managing partner at Forerunner Ventures, whose portfolio company Chime recently went public and experienced a 37% pop in stock price on its first day of trading. (Forerunner also has investments in public company Hims & Hers and late stage private companies including Oura.) “I believe we should revisit this idea: an IPO is the Series A of being in the public market–and having that really be a motivator to people’s willingness, and maybe even eagerness to go public.”  (As if on cue, HeartFlow, a medical technology company, filed an S-1 for its IPO at a $1.3 billion valuation on August 1).

Kyle Stanford, the director of research on US venture capital at PitchBook, notes that just 18 venture-backed companies have gone public through June 30 of this year. This, he says, is a factor of policy uncertainties that translate to funding headwinds as well as the overfunding that occurred in 2021 that continues to stymie venture capital. “Figma hopefully starts to break the dam, but it’s been a pretty slow quarter,” he says.

Though Figma, which makes design software, is profitable and has a strong set of integrated AI capabilities, these qualities are not essential to companies bound for IPO success, says Stanford. He says that investors would prefer companies to generate a minimum of $200 million in revenue that grows at high rates and prioritize positive free cash flow over profitability. Having an AI story is also “very important,” unless the company is very high growth and profitable by wide margins. 

Canva may be a most-compelling case since it’s a design company with similar fundamentals to that of Figma, said multiple investors I interviewed. Design collaboration company Canva has raised about $589 million over 18 rounds at a $32 billion valuation, higher than that of Figma’s at the time of its IPO. “Canva is a big winner when it comes to what happened yesterday with Figma,” says Jason Shuman, an investor at Primary Ventures. Shuman, who is not an investor in Canva, points to Canva’s $3 billion annual revenue and 35% year-over-year growth as signs of its business’ durability.

Others agree. “Canva—after looking at Figma, holy crap—they’re going to try to IPO as soon as possible,” says Felix Wang, Managing Director and Partner at Hedgeye Risk Management, who is not a Canva investor.  Canva, which was recently valued at $37 billion during a share buy back, did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Wang and others note that the surge in Figma’s price is, in many ways, not actually driven by Figma. Rather, the market is at an all-time high, causing retail trader demand for companies new to market. “They don’t even know this company, but they know it’s a new company,” says Wang of retail traders investing in Figma. “They’re going to put some money into it, and then, more interestingly: they’re going to show it off on social media.”

As Figma is to Canva; NuBank is to Revolut, reasons Primary’s Shuman. He looks at fintech NuBank, which is up around 13% from its early 2025 IPO and thinks that Revolut, which has a very similar business model, could copycat. Revolut told Fortune in a statement: “our focus is not on if or when we IPO, but on continuing to expand the business, building new products, and providing better and cheaper services to serve our growing global customer base.” 

Another potential IPO candidate in the near-future is chipmaker Cerebras, says Primary’s Shuman, who invests in vertical AI, B2B, SMB and finance and defense companies but has no stake in Cerebras or Revolut. (Cerebras filed an S-1 in September 2024 but its IPO was delayed by regulators concerned about a $335 million investment by UAE-based G42. Now, it’s been cleared by regulators for a public market listing, but the company has held off on an IPO as it fundraises $1 billion, reports The Information.)

Many companies, including the largest and hottest private company OpenAI (which just nabbed a $300 billion valuation, per the New York Times), have significant incentives to remain private. This is because they can avoid public scrutiny that arises from disclosures required of public companies and have access to significant private capital for liquidity infusions that are often essential. 

Yet, the fact that behemoths like OpenAI, Stripe ($91 billion valuation) and SpaceX ($400 billion valuation) are private may even be a hidden cost for the public market. “I’m going to get philosophical,” says Forerunner’s Green. “Part of the public market was created so the broader population could participate in the economy and in the growth of the economy; it wasn’t meant to sit in a few people’s hands.”

One behemoth may be entering the stock market limelight. Anduril, the defense tech company that nabbed a $30.5 billion valuation on its Series G, has incentives to remain private due to the nature of its business. But Pitchbook’s Stanford predicts it to be the next tech IPO. In addition to Anduril’s CEO announcing it will “definitely” become publicly traded, its value proposition is core to Trump Administration priorities in security and defense, which could make it a hot pick for investors, Stanford reasons. 

“Other than that,” he says the list of potential IPO candidates these days is long: “There’s probably about 300 other companies that it could be.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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