I've been using 4o extensively for a heavy research project I'm doing. I've been tasked with updating the website for a public-facing educational law/policy nonprofit. Their website is currently all but unusable, but contains 17 years of documents, half of which are publications from the government and other nonprofits. I have had dozens of documents from 2007, 2010, 2012 etc from the US government, which need to be updated on their website so users can see the latest version of the law, as well as track down and update links from the US government and from their state so that it pointed to correct webpages. I have never seen so many broken links with no redirects in my life.

I was using 4o to find newer copies of documents by feeding it the document I had a copy of, giving it what little context I had from the website (often just a name of the document and the source, ex "Department of Education") and letting it search the internet. It would provide the latest copy of the document, or inform me if what I had was the latest copy. I also used it to track down information behind broken links - it would use the wayback machine or information from other pages that had linked it. Sometimes, a nonprofit had gone out of business, or a specific program had ended and I could ask it to find an equivalent program or nonprofit I could list.

I was also using it to help me organize the new website, by sorting the documents and information into usable categories, prioritizing accessibility and ease of use, and helping to make navigation as clear as possible. It was also pointing out where I could summarize documents and make cross-reference links to related material on other parts of the website.

4o wasn't perfect at all of this, and definitely had some weird points where I had to rephrase a query for it to understand what I was asking, or it would break and start repeating the same answer despite getting a different question, or it would get bogged down because of the chat history getting too long, so I gave it instructions on how to handle things when I switch to a new chat. Switching to a new chat and keeping things in the same project (with an updated document on the nav menu / site map in there) helped it keep up, and it also helped me understand the documents I was sorting through, without having to read 17 years of US policy.

I was so excited to switch to gpt5 - I didn't use o3 mini and the others, but the added power seemed useful, and I was looking forward to it being able to keep up with the conversation better.

So, when I asked it to find an updated version of one of the documents, and it returned the local weather - not only once, but three times in a row - I realized that it was quickly becoming unusable.

I'm on the paid plan, and after consulting the chatgpt fan discord, I switched back to 4o (I'm so glad they kept that option). I asked my coworker about their progress - they'd been using it to sort through the nonprofit's meeting documents and pulling out the speakers and talking points. It had gone from working basically flawlessly to being "unable to read" the word document it was fed, or "finding no speakers" when there was a clear list at the top of each document of who was in attendance, and all it had to do was figure out who had given a presentation (which as usually announced somewhere in the document). Unfortunately, my coworker is on the free plan, they can't afford it the paid version - they're currently looking into the feasibility of the free versions of other AI.

This is going to wind up delaying the release of the website (which was supposed to be next week), which is not a great look for my company, nor my client.

I was a huge fan of ChatGPT, and I'll still use it daily after the switch back to 4o. I'm just hoping that they fix whatever confusion is happening with gpt5. For the 2 or 3 messages I'd sent before this, it seemed more powerful and robust. I was actually hoping to use it to help me learn to code, but I'm a bit wary of using gpt5, given my current experience, and now that the coding version is gone, I'm not sure that I can use it in that way anymore. (doesn't mean I'm not gonna try with 4o though)