OpenAI's upgraded O3 model can use images when reasoning

OpenAI is releasing two new AI reasoning models today: the O3, which the company calls its "most powerful reasoning model," and the O4-mini, which is a smaller and faster model that "achieves remarkable performance for its size and cost," according to a blog post.

The company also says that the O3 and O4-mini will be able to "think" with images, meaning they will "integrate images directly into their chain of thoughts." This can be useful if you show the models things like sketches or whiteboards. OpenAI says the models will also be able to adjust images "as part of their reasoning process" by zooming in or rotating the image.

In addition, OpenAI is announcing that its reasoning models will be able to use all ChatGPT tools, which includes things like web browsing and image creation. These tools will be available today for ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Teams users in o3, o4-mini, and o4-mini-high, and will come to o3-pro "in a few weeks." (o1, o3-mini, and o3-mini-high will be phased out from those tiers.)

Today's announcements follow OpenAI's unveiling of its flagship GPT-4.1 AI model on Monday, the successor to GPT-4o.