Free GPT-5 access heats up AI rivalry: Who wins, who loses?
GenAI race gets hotter
"This is a very happening space. Sam Altman sees the GPT-5 as a step toward ethical AI but warns against over-reliance. Elon Musk, on the other hand, warns of OpenAI's growing influence, citing geopolitical risks. There are other leaders who call it solid but overhyped, exposing LLM limits and pushing hybrid AI approaches," says Gopi Thangavel, Group CIO at Larsen & Toubro, commenting on the development.
"This can be the way to crush the competition -- a strategy used by most. For example, Perplexity is free for India. Moreover, OpenAI has removed other models as they see GPT-5 as more stable and advanced compared to previous models. If you see, they timed it well -- giving previous lighter models as free as OSS 20b and 120b and then launched GPT-5. Besides, GPT 5 is much better than previous models in coding," says Gaurav Rawat, an AI leader with a leading financial sector company and who has experience across the auto and pharma sectors as well.
Designed on the GPT 4 model, GPT-5 is able to offer better detailed and thoughtful answers by analysing intricate tasks such as science questions, coding, information synthesis, or financial analysis. It's also able to return more accurate as well as faster responses as compared to its past models. The new model has the potential to work on various data forms, including images and text, all at the same time. This primarily translates into the fact that somebody can ask the model a question, put up a picture, or even share a document. The GPT 5 can comprehend as well as respond without the need of separate tools. Such a capability wasn't there before.
Free GPT5 sustainable?
"This development is reflective of the competition in this space, which is huge. Other than a few, LLMs are struggling to make money. They spend a lot developing them but are unable to get it back," says Avik Sarkar, Senior Research Fellow & Visiting Faculty at Indian School of Business.
"Nothing is ever truly free — when it's free, you are the product. OpenAI's decision to make GPT‑5 accessible to everyone is a smart play: offer a preview, gauge user engagement, shape future pricing, grow the customer base — and at the same time, turn up the competitive heat. It's the same psychology as letting readers preview a few Kindle pages before buying the book — just at an AI scale. This move will fortify Microsoft's ecosystem and influence. But make no mistake — GPT‑5's capabilities will reshape the competitive landscape. The real question: Which rival will be the first to reveal what they've been hiding under the hood?" comments Rajendra Deshpande, former CIO at Intelenet Global Services.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
39 minutes ago
- Time of India
Mark Zuckerberg's Meta freezes AI hiring and 'bans' employees from…
Meta has abruptly frozen all hiring in its artificial intelligence division last week as part of a broader restructuring of its "Superintelligence Lab," according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Wall Street Journal. The freeze prohibits both external hiring and internal team transfers, with exceptions requiring approval from Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang. The dramatic move follows Meta's unprecedented AI talent war , during which the company hired over 50 researchers and engineers from competitors including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Apple, and Anthropic. Some recruits received compensation packages worth up to $100 million, with one researcher reportedly offered $1.5 billion total compensation. CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally reached out to targets via email and WhatsApp, demonstrating his direct involvement in the high-stakes recruitment campaign. To secure top talent, Meta paid $14 billion for a stake in Scale AI to bring on co-founder Alexandr Wang as its chief AI officer. The company also recruited former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Safe Superintelligence co-founder Daniel Gross, whose courtship involved Meta offering to buy stakes in their venture firm. Mark Zuckerberg's reorganisation triggers leadership exodus at Meta by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like US$31 trillion in wealth extracted from Indonesia during Dutch colonial rule: President Prabowo CNA Read More Undo The restructuring has triggered significant departures from Meta's AI ranks, creating a brain drain that undermines the company's massive investment. According to The New York Times, key figures including research scientist Angela Fan, who helped build Meta's Llama AI model, recently left for OpenAI. Loredana Crisan, vice president of generative AI, is joining software company Figma as chief design officer. Former AI research head Joelle Pineau departed earlier this year for AI startup Cohere. The turmoil stems from disappointing performance of Meta's latest AI models released in April. The company has since abandoned its previous "Behemoth" frontier model to start fresh, according to NYT sources. This setback prompted Zuckerberg to become personally involved in recruiting new talent and dissolving the AGI Foundations team that had overseen the failed project. Adding to the internal chaos, new AI leadership has begun aggressive restructuring. Former OpenAI researcher Shengjia Zhao , now Meta's chief AI scientist, has been interviewing existing employees for new roles within the reorganised structure, questioning them about their past work and creating uncertainty among longtime staff members. Meta's AI division is now split into four groups: superintelligence research, AI products, infrastructure, and long-term exploration projects. The upheaval mirrors Meta's previous technology pivots, particularly its costly metaverse initiative that saw massive hiring followed by significant layoffs when market enthusiasm cooled. Investor concerns mount over Meta's AI spending spree The hiring freeze reflects growing investor scrutiny over Meta's spiraling AI costs, which have raised questions about return on investment. Morgan Stanley analysts warned in an August 18 research note that lavish stock-based compensation packages offered to AI talent could threaten the company's ability to return capital to shareholders through buybacks. Meta's capital expenditures could reach $72 billion this year, primarily for AI data centers and researcher salaries. The company's aggressive spending has contributed to recent technology stock selloffs as investors question whether massive AI investments will generate proportional returns. The freeze suggests Meta is attempting to control costs while consolidating its scattered AI efforts. The timing is particularly challenging as the broader tech industry faces mounting pressure to demonstrate tangible results from AI investments. While Meta's advertising business has benefited from AI improvements, the company's pursuit of "superintelligence" remains largely theoretical, creating tension between immediate financial pressures and long-term technological ambitions. A Meta spokesperson characterised the freeze as "basic organizational planning" following the company's hiring spree and annual budgeting exercises, though the duration remains undetermined. The company maintains that the restructuring aims to accelerate AI product development and achieve superintelligence goals more efficiently. AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
Stop wasting on Free AI: These paid plans are worth it in 2025
Paid AI chat plans are essential tools for anyone doing serious work. In India, subscription costs run from about ₹ 399 to ₹ 1,999 per month, offering smoother performance, smarter models, and extra features over freebies. Here's a breakdown of what's worth your money. OpenAI keeps it flexible. The newly introduced ChatGPT Go costs ₹ 399/month, supports UPI payments, and gives you 10× the message quota, image uploads, and GPT-5 access over the free tier. ChatGPT Plus at ₹ 1,999/month delivers peak performance with advanced reasoning, plugins, and multimodal support. Pro exists but remains niche. Gemini's free tier covers basic tasks and integrates across Google tools. The Google AI Pro upgrade, $19.99/month (approx ₹ 1,700), unlocks Gemini 2.5 Pro, deep research, video tools, and NotebookLM. There's also an Ultra tier (~$249/month) for premium access and heavy users. Perplexity Pro users tap into multimodel reasoning powered by GPT-4.1, Claude 4.0 Sonnet, Grok, and Gemini 2.5 Pro. It also includes smart features like file uploads, deep research, and API access. Airtel's India-only offer gives existing users Perplexity Pro free for a year, a serious bargain worth grabbing before it expires. Grok 4 just raised its bar, and price. The new $300/month plan brings multi-agent reasoning, coding smarts, and a punchy knowledge engine. A premium tool for devs, researchers, and power users. Scenario Best option Affordable all-rounder ChatGPT Go ₹ 399/month Creative deep research Perplexity Pro Google-centric productivity tasks Gemini AI Pro Developer-level heavy workflows Grok 4 ($300/month) If you only need help with writing, brainstorming, or basic queries, even free plans might suffice. But if your workflow demands speed, multi-modality, deep research, or enterprise integration, these paid tiers offer real gains, just pick the plan that fits how you work (and what you want in your AI toolbox).
India Today
an hour ago
- India Today
Leaked Grok chats on Google expose wild AI requests, from making drugs and bombs to killing Elon Musk
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence start-up xAI is facing scrutiny after thousands of conversations with its chatbot Grok were found to be publicly available through Google search, exposing everything from mundane tasks to alarming requests. According to a report by Forbes, Grok users who hit the 'share' button on their chats were unknowingly publishing those conversations to a public webpage. Each shared exchange generated a unique URL which, without a disclaimer, was also made visible to search engines such as Google, Bing and has resulted in more than 370,000 Grok conversations being indexed online, ranging from everyday uses like drafting tweets to darker prompts including methods for making fentanyl and bombs, coding malware, and even a detailed plan for assassinating Musk of the indexed chats also revealed sensitive personal information. Forbes apparently reviewed cases where users shared names, private details, passwords, and uploaded files including spreadsheets and images. Others involved medical and psychological queries that users may have assumed were private. Some conversations also contained racist or explicit content, and others directly violated xAI's rules that ban the creation of weapons or content promoting harm. Despite this, Grok's own instructions on making illicit drugs, planning suicide, and developing malware were published via the share function and indexed on revelation comes months after OpenAI faced backlash when some ChatGPT conversations showed up in search results. OpenAI quickly reversed course, with chief information security officer Dane Stuckey calling it 'a short-lived experiment' that risked exposing unintended information. At the time, Musk mocked OpenAI and claimed Grok had no such feature, posting 'Grok ftw' on X. The revelations about Grok and ChatGPT's leaked chats highlight a wider dilemma in how people are beginning to use AI. Increasingly, conversations with chatbots go far beyond drafting emails or writing code, they are becoming deeply personal. Across Reddit and Instagram, users describe turning to ChatGPT for 'voice journaling,' using it as a patient listener for relationship struggles, grief, or daily anxieties. Many say it feels like a safe space where they can unload without judgement. But this intimacy brings risks. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has openly cautioned against treating ChatGPT as a therapist, noting that such exchanges are not protected by legal or medical privilege. Deleted conversations may still be retrievable, and a Stanford study recently warned that AI 'therapists' often mishandle sensitive situations, sometimes reinforcing harmful stereotypes or offering unsafe has also acknowledged the powerful emotional bonds forming between people and chatbots, describing them as stronger than past attachments to technology. That dependency, he argues, is an ethical challenge that society is only beginning to grapple with. - EndsTrending Reel
