How Microsoft-Backed OpenAI’s ‘Mini’ AI Model Is Heating Up the AI Competition

Microsoft-backed (MSFT) OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o mini, its latest artificial intelligence (AI) model that is smaller and lower cost than its predecessors, in a move that could help advance the AI pioneer’s position in the AI race.

GPT-4o mini offers some of the capabilities of OpenAI’s larger models at a lower cost, and could appeal to those looking for AI systems for specific uses that don’t require the same computing power as bigger models, which could attract new customers and expand the company’s AI leadership.

OpenAI Says GPT-4o Mini Outperforms Google’s Small Models and More

OpenAI claimed that GPT-4o mini outperformed GPT-3.5 Turbo, the company’s previous task-specific model, as well as some competitors’ small model offerings including Google parent Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Gemini Flash and Amazon-backed (AMZN) Anthropic’s Claude Haiku.

While GPT-4o mini outperformed its small model peers in several benchmarks, it still lagged OpenAI’s larger GPT-4o.

The company did not compare GPT-4o mini’s performance to that of Microsoft’s small model, Phi-3 Mini. As a major OpenAI investor, Microsoft could potentially stand to benefit from OpenAI’s gains from GPT-4o mini.

GPT-4o mini’s low cost and better performance compared to alternative small models could attract more customers to OpenAI. The small model could also be especially beneficial to OpenAI as an Apple (AAPL) partner as a new AI-supercharged iPhone model is expected in the coming months.

The new model is available to ChatGPT Free, Plus, and Teams users as of Thursday, as well as developers. Enterprise users are set to have access starting next week.