OpenAI to Release First Open-Weight Language Model Soon

OpenAI has announced plans to release its first open-weight language model since GPT-2 “in the coming months.” The company revealed this in a feedback form published on its website on Monday, inviting input from developers, researchers, and the broader AI community.

TL;DR: we are excited to release a powerful new open-weight language model with reasoning in the coming months, and we want to talk to devs about how to make it maximally useful: https://t.co/XKB4XxjREV

we are excited to make this a very, very good model!

__

we are planning to…

— Sam Altman (@sama) March 31, 2025

The form includes questions such as:

• “What would you like to see in an open-weight model from OpenAI?”
• “What open models have you used in the past?”

Community Collaboration and Developer Events

OpenAI emphasised its intent to collaborate with the AI community to make the new model as effective as possible.

The company stated on its website:

“We’re excited to collaborate with developers, researchers, and the broader community to gather inputs and make this model as useful as possible.

“If you’re interested in joining a feedback session with the OpenAI team, please let us know in the form below.”

To gather further insights, OpenAI will host developer events, including an initial session in San Francisco within the next few weeks, followed by events in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

Read Also: OpenAI Expands Image Generation Tool to All Users

Competition from Open AI Models

OpenAI faces increasing competition from AI labs like DeepSeek, which have embraced open-weight models.

Unlike OpenAI’s more restrictive approach, these competitors provide open models for experimentation and commercialisation, a strategy that has gained significant traction.

Key players in the open AI space include:

• Meta’s Llama: Meta reported in March that its Llama model family had surpassed 1 billion downloads.
• DeepSeek: The Chinese AI lab has rapidly built a strong global user base and attracted domestic investors.

Sam Altman’s Perspective on Open Sourcing

In a recent Reddit Q&A, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged OpenAI’s past reluctance toward open-source AI, suggesting a shift in strategy may be needed.

“[I personally think we need to] figure out a different open-source strategy,” Altman said.

“Not everyone at OpenAI shares this view, and it’s also not our current highest priority […] We will produce better models [going forward], but we will maintain less of a lead than we did in previous years.”

Details on the New Open Model

Altman elaborated on the upcoming model in a post on X, stating that it will feature reasoning capabilities similar to OpenAI’s o3-mini model.

“Before release, we will evaluate this model according [to] our preparedness framework, like we would for any other model,” he said.

“And we will do extra work given that we know this model will be modified post-release […] We’re excited to see what developers build and how large companies and governments use it where they prefer to run a model themselves.”

Controversy Over OpenAI’s Model Safety Reviews

Meanwhile, excerpts from an upcoming book by Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey allege that Altman misled OpenAI executives regarding model safety reviews before his brief ouster in November 2023.

The claims raise further questions about OpenAI’s internal decision-making processes and transparency.