ChatGPT Project Strawberry is incredibly smart and it could be available within the next two weeks

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Tada Images)

Project Strawberry, OpenAI’s codename for its new ChatGPT reasoning-focused artificial intelligence was set for a fall release, but now reports suggest it could arrive before the iPhone 16 on September 20.

According to The Information, the new ChatGPT service could launch in the next two weeks. Two testers of the new AI model claim the original launch date has been moved forward to pioneer a new generation of AI tools.

Ed Note: OpenAI released Strawberry, now called o1-preview on Sept. 12

Strawberry will be a standalone offering at launch, but we’re not quite sure how it will be implemented into ChatGPT just yet. The testers claim it could be a ‘dropdown menu of AI models customers can pick from to power ChatGPT’ with Strawberry able to think, responding in more detail and taking longer than GPT-4o.

“The initial version will only be able to take in and produce text—and not images—which means it isn’t yet multimodal the way other OpenAI models are.” A clear shortcoming compared to other LLMs out in the market, like Google Gemini.

The Information expects the pricing to be slightly different from ChatGPT, expecting ‘rate limits restricting users to some maximum number of messages per hour, with the potential for a higher-priced tier that’s faster to respond, according to another person with knowledge of the product.’

Sam Altman's X stream. — Sam Altman's mysterious strawberry tweet. (Image credit: X.com/Sam Altman)

So what exactly is Project Strawberry?

Project Strawberry is a new AI model from the folks at OpenAI with a new approach that's able to reason and ‘think’, making it perfect for mathematical equations. The AI model has been used internally to solve puzzles that ChatGPT would struggle with such as New York Times Connections, another word game hit like Wordle.

Just last month, The Information received details from two testers (we can’t confirm they are the same as this report) that Project Strawberry could be released in October/November but it seems like OpenAI has decided to quickly change the expected launch window. It’s still unclear if Project Strawberry will be part of GPT-5, but we might not have long to find out.

John-Anthony Disotto is TechRadar's Senior Writer, AI, ensuring you get the latest information on Tech's biggest buzzword. An expert in Apple, he was previously iMore's How To Editor and has a monthly column in MacFormat. Living in Scotland, where he worked for Apple as a technician focused on iOS and iPhone repairs at the Genius Bar, John-Anthony has used the Apple ecosystem for over a decade and is an award-winning journalist with years of experience in editorial.