ChatGPT May Not Tell You It Is ChatGPT 5 Even Though It Is - How To Tell

byMelWaller

14.6K followers

4 months ago

Hi everyone,

Great news!

Chatting with Howard revealed that I did have ChatGPT 5 even though it doesn't state it and still shows 4o.

Howard wrote: In doing some research my chatbot said it may still say 4o, but it is actually 5. I want to see it show ChatGPT 5! 😀

So I went and asked my ChatGPT.

🔍 ChatGPT Branding vs Model Version
ChatGPT (GPT-4o) is the latest publicly known model available as of now (August 2025).

Even if OpenAI releases GPT-5 internally or silently updates capabilities, they may still label it as GPT-4o for a period of time — especially if:

It’s part of a gradual rollout.

They're running A/B testing or performance comparisons.

They want to avoid confusion during the transition.

This means the underlying model could be GPT-5, but the name “GPT-4o” still shows in the interface.

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✅ How to Test If You're Getting GPT-5 Behavior

Here are a few ways you can test or spot GPT-5-level behavior:

Ask a question GPT-4o typically struggles with, like:

“If all bloogs are glibs, and some glibs are shnaps, can you be certain any bloogs are shnaps?”

If the assistant:

• Gives a quick and accurate answer with reasoning, that may suggest GPT-5-level capability.
• GPT-4o often hesitates, whereas GPT-5 (based on leaks and demos) handles such logic better.

Try referencing previous interactions, like:

“What book description did I ask you to rewrite yesterday?”

Even though memory is off by default unless explicitly enabled, GPT-5 may exhibit better contextual recall within sessions than GPT-4o.

Upload a complex image and ask for:

“Analyze this image, tell me the emotions, art style, and what it could represent symbolically.”

GPT-5 is said to have stronger multimodal understanding — better emotional, symbolic, and metaphorical interpretations.

Ask it to:

“Create a simple React app with TailwindCSS that pulls live weather data.”

GPT-5 may:

• Generate cleaner, more modular code.
• Auto-fix errors faster.
• Suggest next steps proactively (more like an agent).

Try:

“Are you running on GPT-5 or GPT-4o? Have your internal capabilities been upgraded?”

Sometimes the assistant will say:

• “I’m based on GPT-4o, but my capabilities may include updates or enhancements.”
• Or: “I don’t have access to my own model ID or backend updates.”

🧪 Experimental Confirmation

If you're really curious, you can also:

• Run side-by-side comparisons between this and Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Gemini 1.5 Pro.
• GPT-5-level capabilities should equal or exceed those.

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I am more than convinced that I have ChatGPT 5.

Time for me to put it to work!

To Our Success!

Mel Waller