OpenAI will release an open-weight language model, offering developers more flexibility and transparency for the first time since GPT-2.
OpenAI is shaking things up. After years of tightly controlling access to its most powerful models, the company now says it plans to release an open-weight language model in the coming months. It is a significant shift in strategy from the company best known for its tightly held GPT models.
CEO Sam Altman confirmed the news during an event on March 31, hinting at a model that could reshape how developers and researchers interact with cutting-edge AI. “We’re planning to release a new open-weight language model this year,” Altman said. “And we’ll be sharing more soon.”
Now, before the confusion kicks in — no, this doesn’t mean OpenAI is going fully open source. What they’re offering is an open-weight model, which means developers will get access to the model’s trained parameters (aka the “weights”), but not necessarily the full codebase or training data. It’s a middle ground between transparency and control.
Why does this matter? Because the last time OpenAI released a model with publicly accessible weights was GPT-2 — and that was all the way back in 2019.
The announcement comes at a time when open-source alternatives like Meta’s LLaMA and China’s DeepSeek are gaining traction with researchers who want more flexibility and fewer restrictions. OpenAI’s move appears to be a direct response to that rising wave.
Developer-Focused Rollout
OpenAI isn’t just dropping the model and disappearing. According to Altman, the company will host community events in San Francisco and other international locations to gather feedback and offer early previews. “We’re excited to see what developers build and how large companies and governments use it where they prefer to run a model themselves,” he said.
There’s also a bigger play here. OpenAI is currently navigating its transition into a full for-profit entity — a prerequisite for securing the full $40 billion funding it recently raised from SoftBank and other investors. Making a strategic “openness” gesture now could help ease criticism about the company's growing commercial focus.
Whether this new open-weight model can compete with the open-source giants remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: OpenAI’s next chapter will look a lot more collaborative.
