OpenAI GPT-5 System Card
Computation and Language
2026-05-05 v2 Artificial Intelligence
Abstract
This is the system card published alongside the OpenAI GPT-5 launch, August 2025. GPT-5 is a unified system with a smart and fast model that answers most questions, a deeper reasoning model for harder problems, and a real-time router that quickly decides which model to use based on conversation type, complexity, tool needs, and explicit intent (for example, if you say 'think hard about this' in the prompt). The router is continuously trained on real signals, including when users switch models, preference rates for responses, and measured correctness, improving over time. Once usage limits are reached, a mini version of each model handles remaining queries. This system card focuses primarily on gpt-5-thinking and gpt-5-main, while evaluations for other models are available in the appendix. The GPT-5 system not only outperforms previous models on benchmarks and answers questions more quickly, but -- more importantly -- is more useful for real-world queries. We've made significant advances in reducing hallucinations, improving instruction following, and minimizing sycophancy, and have leveled up GPT-5's performance in three of ChatGPT's most common uses: writing, coding, and health. All of the GPT-5 models additionally feature safe-completions, our latest approach to safety training to prevent disallowed content. Similarly to ChatGPT agent, we have decided to treat gpt-5-thinking as High capability in the Biological and Chemical domain under our Preparedness Framework, activating the associated safeguards. While we do not have definitive evidence that this model could meaningfully help a novice to create severe biological harm -- our defined threshold for High capability -- we have chosen to take a precautionary approach.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2601.03267,
title = {OpenAI GPT-5 System Card},
author = {Aaditya Singh and Adam Fry and Adam Perelman and Adam Tart and Adi Ganesh and Ahmed El-Kishky and Aidan McLaughlin and Aiden Low and AJ Ostrow and Akhila Ananthram and Akshay Nathan and Alan Luo and Alec Helyar and Aleksander Madry and Aleksandr Efremov and Aleksandra Spyra and Alex Baker-Whitcomb and Alex Beutel and Alex Karpenko and Alex Makelov and Alex Neitz and Alex Wei and Alexandra Barr and Alexandre Kirchmeyer and Alexey Ivanov and Alexi Christakis and Alistair Gillespie and Allison Tam and Ally Bennett and Alvin Wan and Alyssa Huang and Amy McDonald Sandjideh and Amy Yang and Ananya Kumar and Andre Saraiva and Andrea Vallone and Andrei Gheorghe and Andres Garcia Garcia and Andrew Braunstein and Andrew Liu and Andrew Schmidt and Andrey Mereskin and Andrey Mishchenko and Andy Applebaum and Andy Rogerson and Ann Rajan and Annie Wei and Anoop Kotha and Anubha Srivastava and Anushree Agrawal and Arun Vijayvergiya and Ashley Tyra and Ashvin Nair and Avi Nayak and Ben Eggers and Bessie Ji and Beth Hoover and Bill Chen and Blair Chen and Boaz Barak and Borys Minaiev and Botao Hao and Bowen Baker and Brad Lightcap and Brandon McKinzie and Brandon Wang and Brendan Quinn and Brian Fioca and Brian Hsu and Brian Yang and Brian Yu and Brian Zhang and Brittany Brenner and Callie Riggins Zetino and Cameron Raymond and Camillo Lugaresi and Carolina Paz and Cary Hudson and Cedric Whitney and Chak Li and Charles Chen and Charlotte Cole and Chelsea Voss and Chen Ding and Chen Shen and Chengdu Huang and Chris Colby and Chris Hallacy and Chris Koch and Chris Lu and Christina Kaplan and Christina Kim and CJ Minott-Henriques and Cliff Frey and Cody Yu and Coley Czarnecki and Colin Reid and Colin Wei and Cory Decareaux and Cristina Scheau and Cyril Zhang and Cyrus Forbes and Da Tang and Dakota Goldberg and Dan Roberts and Dana Palmie and Daniel Kappler and Daniel Levine and Daniel Wright and Dave Leo and David Lin and David Robinson and Declan Grabb and Derek Chen and Derek Lim and Derek Salama and Dibya Bhattacharjee and Dimitris Tsipras and Dinghua Li and Dingli Yu and DJ Strouse and Drew Williams and Dylan Hunn and Ed Bayes and Edwin Arbus and Ekin Akyurek and Elaine Ya Le and Elana Widmann and Eli Yani and Elizabeth Proehl and Enis Sert and Enoch Cheung and Eri Schwartz and Eric Han and Eric Jiang and Eric Mitchell and Eric Sigler and Eric Wallace and Erik Ritter and Erin Kavanaugh and Evan Mays and Evgenii Nikishin and Fangyuan Li and Felipe Petroski Such and Filipe de Avila Belbute Peres and Filippo Raso and Florent Bekerman and Foivos Tsimpourlas and Fotis Chantzis and Francis Song and Francis Zhang and Gaby Raila and Garrett McGrath and Gary Briggs and Gary Yang and Giambattista Parascandolo and Gildas Chabot and Grace Kim and Grace Zhao and Gregory Valiant and Guillaume Leclerc and Hadi Salman and Hanson Wang and Hao Sheng and Haoming Jiang and Haoyu Wang and Haozhun Jin and Harshit Sikchi and Heather Schmidt and Henry Aspegren and Honglin Chen and Huida Qiu and Hunter Lightman and Ian Covert and Ian Kivlichan and Ian Silber and Ian Sohl and Ibrahim Hammoud and Ignasi Clavera and Ikai Lan and Ilge Akkaya and Ilya Kostrikov and Irina Kofman and Isak Etinger and Ishaan Singal and Jackie Hehir and Jacob Huh and Jacqueline Pan and Jake Wilczynski and Jakub Pachocki and James Lee and James Quinn and Jamie Kiros and Janvi Kalra and Jasmyn Samaroo and Jason Wang and Jason Wolfe and Jay Chen and Jay Wang and Jean Harb and Jeffrey Han and Jeffrey Wang and Jennifer Zhao and Jeremy Chen and Jerene Yang and Jerry Tworek and Jesse Chand and Jessica Landon and Jessica Liang and Ji Lin and Jiancheng Liu and Jianfeng Wang and Jie Tang and Jihan Yin and Joanne Jang and Joel Morris and Joey Flynn and Johannes Ferstad and Johannes Heidecke and John Fishbein and John Hallman and Jonah Grant and Jonathan Chien and Jonathan Gordon and Jongsoo Park and Jordan Liss and Jos Kraaijeveld and Joseph Guay and Joseph Mo and Josh Lawson and Josh McGrath and Joshua Vendrow and Joy Jiao and Julian Lee and Julie Steele and Julie Wang and Junhua Mao and Kai Chen and Kai Hayashi and Kai Xiao and Kamyar Salahi and Kan Wu and Karan Sekhri and Karan Sharma and Karan Singhal and Karen Li and Kenny Nguyen and Keren Gu-Lemberg and Kevin King and Kevin Liu and Kevin Stone and Kevin Yu and Kristen Ying and Kristian Georgiev and Kristie Lim and Kushal Tirumala and Kyle Miller and Lama Ahmad and Larry Lv and Laura Clare and Laurance Fauconnet and Lauren Itow and Lauren Yang and Laurentia Romaniuk and Leah Anise and Lee Byron and Leher Pathak and Leon Maksin and Leyan Lo and Leyton Ho and Li Jing and Liang Wu and Liang Xiong and Lien Mamitsuka and Lin Yang and Lindsay McCallum and Lindsey Held and Liz Bourgeois and Logan Engstrom and Lorenz Kuhn and Louis Feuvrier and Lu Zhang and Lucas Switzer and Lukas Kondraciuk and Lukasz Kaiser and Manas Joglekar and Mandeep Singh and Mandip Shah and Manuka Stratta and Marcus Williams and Mark Chen and Mark Sun and Marselus Cayton and Martin Li and Marvin Zhang and Marwan Aljubeh and Matt Nichols and Matthew Haines and Max Schwarzer and Mayank Gupta and Meghan Shah and Melody Y. Guan and Melody Huang and Meng Dong and Mengqing Wang and Mia Glaese and Micah Carroll and Michael Lampe and Michael Malek and Michael Sharman and Michael Zhang and Michele Wang and Michelle Pokrass and Mihai Florian and Mikhail Pavlov and Miles Wang and Ming Chen and Mingxuan Wang and Minnia Feng and Mo Bavarian and Molly Lin and Moose Abdool and Mostafa Rohaninejad and Nacho Soto and Natalie Staudacher and Natan LaFontaine and Nathan Marwell and Nelson Liu and Nick Preston and Nick Turley and Nicklas Ansman and Nicole Blades and Nikil Pancha and Nikita Mikhaylin and Niko Felix and Nikunj Handa and Nishant Rai and Nitish Keskar and Noam Brown and Ofir Nachum and Oleg Boiko and Oleg Murk and Olivia Watkins and Oona Gleeson and Pamela Mishkin and Patryk Lesiewicz and Paul Baltescu and Pavel Belov and Peter Zhokhov and Philip Pronin and Phillip Guo and Phoebe Thacker and Qi Liu and Qiming Yuan and Qinghua Liu and Rachel Dias and Rachel Puckett and Rahul Arora and Ravi Teja Mullapudi and Raz Gaon and Reah Miyara and Rennie Song and Rishabh Aggarwal and RJ Marsan and Robel Yemiru and Robert Xiong and Rohan Kshirsagar and Rohan Nuttall and Roman Tsiupa and Ronen Eldan and Rose Wang and Roshan James and Roy Ziv and Rui Shu and Ruslan Nigmatullin and Saachi Jain and Saam Talaie and Sam Altman and Sam Arnesen and Sam Toizer and Sam Toyer and Samuel Miserendino and Sandhini Agarwal and Sarah Yoo and Savannah Heon and Scott Ethersmith and Sean Grove and Sean Taylor and Sebastien Bubeck and Sever Banesiu and Shaokyi Amdo and Shengjia Zhao and Sherwin Wu and Shibani Santurkar and Shiyu Zhao and Shraman Ray Chaudhuri and Shreyas Krishnaswamy and Shuaiqi and Xia and Shuyang Cheng and Shyamal Anadkat and Simón Posada Fishman and Simon Tobin and Siyuan Fu and Somay Jain and Song Mei and Sonya Egoian and Spencer Kim and Spug Golden and SQ Mah and Steph Lin and Stephen Imm and Steve Sharpe and Steve Yadlowsky and Sulman Choudhry and Sungwon Eum and Suvansh Sanjeev and Tabarak Khan and Tal Stramer and Tao Wang and Tao Xin and Tarun Gogineni and Taya Christianson and Ted Sanders and Tejal Patwardhan and Thomas Degry and Thomas Shadwell and Tianfu Fu and Tianshi Gao and Timur Garipov and Tina Sriskandarajah and Toki Sherbakov and Tomek Korbak and Tomer Kaftan and Tomo Hiratsuka and Tongzhou Wang and Tony Song and Tony Zhao and Troy Peterson and Val Kharitonov and Victoria Chernova and Vineet Kosaraju and Vishal Kuo and Vitchyr Pong and Vivek Verma and Vlad Petrov and Wanning Jiang and Weixing Zhang and Wenda Zhou and Wenlei Xie and Wenting Zhan and Wes McCabe and Will DePue and Will Ellsworth and Wulfie Bain and Wyatt Thompson and Xiangning Chen and Xiangyu Qi and Xin Xiang and Xinwei Shi and Yann Dubois and Yaodong Yu and Yara Khakbaz and Yifan Wu and Yilei Qian and Yin Tat Lee and Yinbo Chen and Yizhen Zhang and Yizhong Xiong and Yonglong Tian and Young Cha and Yu Bai and Yu Yang and Yuan Yuan and Yuanzhi Li and Yufeng Zhang and Yuguang Yang and Yujia Jin and Yun Jiang and Yunyun Wang and Yushi Wang and Yutian Liu and Zach Stubenvoll and Zehao Dou and Zheng Wu and Zhigang Wang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.03267},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
May 2026: Added monitorability evals and authors