OpenAI is gearing up to introduce its next-generation model, codenamed "Orion," before the end of the year. Orion, developed from the OpenAI o1 data synthesis project, is considered the successor to GPT-4 and is anticipated to offer exponential improvements over its predecessor. The model aspires to seamlessly process text, images, and videos, marking a significant leap in language processing and multimodal capabilities.
While Orion is seen internally as the next big step, there's uncertainty about whether it will ultimately be named GPT-5. OpenAI plans to first provide access to businesses closely collaborating with them, with Microsoft engineers preparing for a potential November deployment of Orion on the Azure cloud.
This development comes at a pivotal time for OpenAI, which recently secured a historic $6.6 billion funding round, elevating its valuation to $157 billion. Within the next two years, OpenAI is set to fully transition into a for-profit entity, accelerating its commercialization efforts. The Orion model represents a crucial part of OpenAI's broader vision for the future of artificial intelligence, aiming to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI) through ongoing iterations of large models.
