The GPT-5 Backlash: What 10,000+ Reddit Discussions Reveal

GPT-5 arrived as 2025's most anticipated AI release. Within hours, Reddit's AI communities erupted with thousands threads and comments, and the verdict was surprisingly harsh.

To understand this unprecedented reaction, we built a comprehensive analysis using Reddit Intelligence, processing over 150,000 discussions from AI-focused subreddits such as r/ChatGPT, r/OpenAI, r/Singularity and others. Our methodology included:

• Topic classification to identify dominant conversation themes
• Entity extraction to track AI model mentions
• Sentiment analysis to measure community reception

The data tells a stark story. After filtering for GPT-5, GPT-5 mini, and GPT-5 nano mentions between August 7-13 (the first week post-launch), we analyzed 10,000+ threads and comments that reveal deep fractures in the AI community's relationship with OpenAI.

Explore the full dataset yourself at our AI Intelligence Dashboard, where you can filter by date, topic, model, sentiment, keyword, subreddit, and more.

Let's dive into what Reddit really thinks about GPT-5.

💡 TL;DR: Five Critical Insights

• 💩 Most users perceive GPT-5 as a downgrade
• 💔 OpenAI has eroded user trust through poor communication
• ❌ Model choice removal sparked significant backlash
• 📉 Google is seen as ascendant while OpenAI declines
• 💨 Sam Altman accused of "overpromising and underdelivering"

💩 Most users perceive GPT-5 as a downgrade

The data reveals an overwhelming theme: "Upgrade or Downgrade?" dominates 67% of all GPT-5 discussions:

But this is just volume, it's the sentiment about this topic that matters to understand where seeing GPT 5 as an upgrade or as a downgrade from previous models such as GPT 4o and o3. When we filtered the data by the "Upgrade or Downgrade?" topic, we saw that more than 50% of the discussions were strictly negative vs 11% strictly positive:

😔 Topics Reflecting the Disappointment

Next, we filtered the data even further with "Strickly Negative" sentiment to see which topics reflected the user's disappointment:

The negative discussions cluster around specific capability failures:

• Model Personality degradation
• Creative & Writing Capabilities regression
• Context Window reduction
• Rate Limits decrease

Notably absent from complaints: Math capabilities, Science capabilities, and Multimodality, suggesting GPT-5's technical benchmarks don't translate to user satisfaction.

💬 The Top Threads Capturing the Disappointment

These are the top threads for this slice of data:

• The enshittification of GPT has begun - r/ChatGPT, 2569 upvotes, 908 comments.
• Bring back o3, o3-pro, 4.5 & 4o! - r/ChatGPT, 2015 upvotes, 344 comments.
• OpenAI has HALVED paying user's context windows, overnight, without warning - r/OpenAI, 1930 upvotes, 358 comments.
• To all people asking "Why people want 4o back? - Here you go - r/ChatGPT, 1517 upvotes, 850 comments.
• GPT5 is a mess - r/ChatGPT, 1186 upvotes, 294 comments.

The most telling comment shows GPT-5 abandoning a programming task to randomly list US states: "well when the responses are this dumb in gpt 5, i'd want the legacy models back too"

Using our AI Assistant feature—which analyzes Reddit discussions based on your selected filters and provides instant insights by answering questions in plain English—we asked: "What are people complaining about when they speak negatively about GPT-5?"

The AI Assistant's analysis of thousands of filtered conversations revealed that users consistently describe GPT-5 as "dumber" compared to GPT-4o and o3, lacking in personality, and frustrating due to reduced context windows and slower performance:

💔 OpenAI Has Eroded User Trust Through Poor Communication

The data reveals a crisis of confidence: 70% of Reddit discussions mentioning GPT-5 and addressing "User Trust" carry negative sentiment—versus just 4% positive. This represents one of the most lopsided sentiment distributions in our entire analysis:

💬 The Trust-Breaking Threads

When we filtered discussions by "User Trust" topic and "Strictly Negative" sentiment, three dominant threads emerged:

• OpenAI has HALVED paying user's context windows, overnight, without warning - r/OpenAI, 1930 upvotes, 358 comments.
• This might be one of the most awkward and stilted tech presentations ever put on the internet made - r/singularity, 1609 upvotes, 251 comments.
• The outrage over losing GPT 4o is disturbingly telling - r/artificialinteligence, 947 upvotes, 476 comments.

🤔 What Eroded Trust: AI Assistant Analysis

To understand the depth of this trust breakdown, we asked our AI Assistant: "What did OpenAI do with the GPT-5 release that eroded user trust?"

The analysis revealed a pattern of communication failures:

• Removing access to popular older models like GPT-4o without warning, forcing users onto a model perceived as a downgrade
• Reduced context window for paying users without notice
• Cost-cutting measures disguised as improvements, coupled with misleading communication about the "upgrade"

The data makes the verdict clear: Reddit users value stability and transparent communication from AI providers. Sudden, unannounced changes that disrupt established workflows and force costly re-evaluations of AI dependencies have severely damaged OpenAI's relationship with its user base.

❌ Model Choice Removal Sparked Significant Backlash

Model choice represents the second-most discussed topic at 32% of all GPT-5 conversations:

And mosts of the threads and comments about "Model Choice" are negative:

Keyword analysis of negative model choice discussions reveals "GPT-4o" and "o3" as some of the most frequently mentioned terms, suggesting that users want their old models back:

💬 The Model Choice Backlash Threads

These are the top threads in this slice of data that reflecs the

• OpenAI's habit of rug pulling—why we are moving on to competitors made on r/OpenAI with 795 upvotes and 167 comments.
• This score is a SCAM. They put the most expensive model on. THIS ISNT THE REAL GPT 5. It is only true for the highest reasoning version of gpt 5 (gpt-5-thinking-high). The gpt-5-main version OpenAI wants you to use would rank even below 4o made on r/singularity with 617 upvotes and 87 comments.
• We All Grieve Differently made on r/ChatGPT with 572 upvotes and 44 comments
• OpenAI open washing made on r/LocalLLama with 481 upvotes and 99 comments

Users report the removal of model selection forced them onto GPT-5 despite preferring older models for specific tasks, particularly specialized workflows optimized for GPT-4o's personality and response style.

📉 Google is seen as ascendant while OpenAI declines

"Comparisons to Competitors" ranks as the third most discussed topic in GPT-5 conversations. To understand the competitive narrative, we filtered discussions by GPT-5 models, "Comparisons to Competitors" topic, and "Google" keyword. The AI Trends analysis revealed five dominant themes reshaping the AI landscape perception:

💬 Google Vs OpenAI: The Threads Tells the Story

The community sentiment crystallizes in these top discussions:

• Google is going to cook them soon - r/singularity, 1936 upvotes, 404 comments.
• Google is charging up to something 👀 - r/singularity, 786 upvotes, 100 comments.
• The soul of openai left with ilya - r/OpenAI, 423 upvotes, 89 comments.
• I don’t understand why everyone hates Sam Altman and OpenAI so much. It’s like everyone is waiting for them to fall - r/singularity, 420 upvotes, 531 comments
• GPT-5 Is Underwhelming - r/OpenAI, 365 upvotes, 213 comments.

🧑‍⚖️ The Verdict from Reddit's AI Community

When we asked our AI Assistant: "What are Redditors saying about OpenAI and Google in these threads and comments?" the analysis was stark:

"There's a sentiment that Google is poised to 'cook' or 'crush' OpenAI."

💨 Sam Altman accused of "overpromising and underdelivering"

"Hype vs Reality" emerges as the fourth most discussed topic in GPT-5 conversations. When we filtered the data by this topic, the sentiment breakdown revealed stark disappointment: 52% strictly negative vs only 7 strictly positive:

🔎 Leadership Under Scrutiny

Filtering these discussions by "Strictly Negative" sentiment revealed an unexpected pattern: keywords related to Sam Altman suddenly pops up, something unusual for the rest of the slices of the data:

🖼️ The Meme That Captured the Mood

The thread "GPT-5: the Manhattan Project of overpromising" (1,500 upvotes) crystallized community sentiment with a stark meme labeling Altman as "destroyer of credibility":

💬 Top Threads Paint a Pattern

The most impactful discussions include:

• "This might be one of the most awkward and stilted tech presentations ever put on the internet" - 1,609 upvotes
• "GPT-5: the Manhattan Project of overpromising" - 1,500 upvotes
• "OpenAI should put Redditors in charge" - 1,117 upvotes
• "Poor GPT 5! 😔" - 1,021 upvotes
• "It seems ChatGPT users really hate GPT-5" - 741 upvotes

💨 AI Assistant Verdict: "Overpromised and Underdelivered"

When we asked "What are people talking about on the topic 'Hype VS Reality'?" the AI assistant analysis was revealing: many users feel that OpenAI, particularly Sam Altman, significantly “overpromised and undelivered”:

🥰 What Users DO Appreciate about GPT-5?

Despite overwhelming negativity, there are several things that users do like about GPT-5. So, we used the AI assistant and feed it with data filtered by "Strictly Positive " sentiment (filtered strictly) to find out what users love about GPT-5:

1. Reduced Hallucinations: "6x lower hallucination rate" praised as significant.
   • "A 6x lower hallucination rate is HUGE" (link)
   • "Hallucinations have decreased dramatically." (link)
   • "notable reduction in hallucinations" (link)
2. Enhanced Reasoning: Better performance on complex analytical tasks
   1. "truly capable of reasoning through analyses" (link)
   2. "notable improvement on longer horizon agentic tasks" (link)
   3. "GPT-5 is the new leader on the Step-Game benchmark." (link)
3. Coding Improvements: Developers note solid gains in code generation
   1. "spits out entire scaffolded code bases left and right." (link)
   2. "solid jump in coding" (link)
   3. "GPT-5 just solved a software problem I’d been stuck on for a week" (link)
4. Cost Efficiency: Cheaper and faster than some competitors
   1. very cheap and fast, pushing the Pareto frontier." (link)
   2. "tops most benchmarks while being half of the price and triple the speed" (link)
   3. "Better accuracy and lower cost." (link)
5. Less Sycophancy: More direct, less agreeable personality welcomed by some
   1. "I love that GPT-5 dares to disagree with me head-on." (link)
   2. "it's not assuming I'm right about everything. This is an improvement." (link)
   3. "it will actually have takes on things" (link)

😱 Unexpected Insights

Beyond the main themes, we used our AI Assistant to extract additional insights from the filtered GPT-5 discussions, revealing surprising details and patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed.

🤪 Fun Facts from the Community

We asked the AI Assistant: "What 4-5 fun facts are appearing on conversations about GPT-5?"

💬 The ELI5 AI Community Verdict

For a simplified perspective, we asked: "Can you write an ELI5 summary of Reddit discussions about GPT-5?"

🥹 The Emotional Connection Nobody Expected

When we asked for a random insight from the discussions, the AI Assistant revealed something profound about user psychology:

The AI highlighted that the feel and interaction style of an AI can be just as crucial to user satisfaction as raw intelligence metrics. One particularly poignant comment noted: "The GPT-4o vs GPT-5 debate is not about having a 'bot friend'—it's about something much bigger" (link).

These additional insights, surfaced through our AI Assistant's analysis of thousands of filtered discussions, reveal that the GPT-5 launch brought not just technical debates but unexpected emotional and psychological dimensions to the AI community's response.

🧑‍🔬 Explore the Data Yourself

Our analysis covers August 7-13, 2025, filtered for GPT-5 model mentions. The AI Intelligence Dashboard allows you to:

• Filter by date ranges, topics, models, sentiment, keywords
• Analyze specific subreddits
• Ask the AI assistant custom questions about filtered data
• Export findings for your own analysis

Most insights in this report emerged from combining model filters related to GPT-5 with additional dimensions (topic, sentiment, or keyword) to identify specific conversation patterns.

💭 My Thoughts about GPT-5

I root for OpenAI. Talented people work there who've fundamentally changed our world since ChatGPT's November 30 2022 launch. It definitely has changed my life and it's been an amazing tool for personal and professional things.

But as potential architects of AGI/ASI, we must hold them to the highest standards. This technology's impact demands exceptional responsibility—there's no room for the missteps we've documented.

The unexcused failures—removing models without notice, eliminating user choice, overhyping marginal improvements—violate basic user trust. Full transparency, clear communication, and user autonomy aren't negotiable for organizations pursuing transformative AI.

OpenAI has begun addressing these issues (restoring model choice, bringing back GPT-4o, fixing rate limits), but rebuilding trust takes time. Future releases can't rely on post-backlash corrections. With ASI, we have no margin for error.

🎯 The Lesson: Listen Where Users Actually Talk

This GPT-5 analysis reveals what no benchmark could: the raw, unfiltered truth of user experience. While OpenAI celebrated technical metrics or SOTA results on benchmarks, Reddit exposed the reality: users mourning lost model personalities, developers rebuilding workflows, and a community feeling betrayed by poor communication.

These insights emerged from analyzing 10,000+ discussions specifically about GPT-5, revealing patterns invisible in traditional feedback channels:

• The emotional attachment to AI personalities that benchmarks miss entirely
• Trust erosion from communication failures, not technical shortcomings
• Competitive shifts happening in real-time as users migrate to alternatives
• Hidden positive signals (reduced hallucinations, better reasoning) buried under overwhelming negativity

For any company building products, these authentic conversations represent invaluable intelligence. Reddit discussions reveal what users won't say in surveys, what they really prioritize, and how they actually talk about your product when you're not in the room.

With Reddit Intelligence by WordCrafter, you can create custom Reddit dashboards for your niche, tracking sentiment shifts, identifying feature requests, and discovering language that resonates with your audience.

To see Reddit Intelligence in action for your specific niche, reach out at feco@wordcrafter.ai. I'd love to show you what insights are hiding in your audience's conversations 🚀