GPT-4.5 retires from ChatGPT on June 26, 2026. The change was flagged on Grok AI News and follows an earlier announcement from OpenAI.
Existing conversations that used GPT-4.5 will continue automatically on GPT-5.5. The retirement applies only to the ChatGPT consumer product and does not affect the OpenAI API.
Retirement Scope and Timeline
GPT-4.5 becomes unavailable for new chats and for building or running custom GPTs after June 26, 2026. OpenAI stated the cutoff date in its release notes and confirmed it applies platform-wide within ChatGPT.
Users who open old threads will see the model switch to GPT-5.5 without manual action. No data loss occurs during the transition.
Migration Path for Existing Users
OpenAI routes ongoing GPT-4.5 threads to GPT-5.5 at the next message. Custom GPT owners must update their GPTs to a supported model before the cutoff to keep them functional.
Developers running batch evaluations or saved prompts should test GPT-5.5 output on the same inputs ahead of June 26.
API Status Remains Unchanged
The OpenAI API continues to serve GPT-4.5 after the ChatGPT retirement date. Only the ChatGPT web and mobile interfaces lose access.
Teams that rely on the API for production workloads face no immediate change from this announcement.
Comparison with GPT-5.5
| Feature | GPT-4.5 (until June 26) | GPT-5.5 (after switch) |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT availability | Ends June 26 2026 | Active |
| Custom GPT support | Ends June 26 2026 | Active |
| API access | Continues | Continues |
| Conversation continuity | Manual switch required | Automatic |
Early internal benchmarks shared by OpenAI show GPT-5.5 improves reasoning accuracy over GPT-4.5 on standard evaluation sets while maintaining similar latency.
Who This Affects Most
Power users and teams that built custom GPTs around GPT-4.5 must migrate before the deadline. Casual users with saved threads experience only the automatic model swap.
API-only customers and researchers using the developer platform see no disruption.
Practical Next Steps
- Export any custom GPT configurations before June 26.
- Run side-by-side tests of GPT-5.5 on representative prompts.
- Update documentation that references GPT-4.5 model IDs.
Bottom line: The retirement forces ChatGPT users to adopt GPT-5.5 while leaving API access intact.
OpenAI has not announced further consumer-model retirements beyond this date.
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