OpenAI o3-mini: A Faster, Smarter AI for STEM

OpenAI has recently unveiled its latest AI model, o3-mini, designed to deliver advanced reasoning capabilities with enhanced efficiency. This release aims to provide users with faster and more accurate responses, particularly in complex fields such as mathematics, coding, and scientific research.

As part of this upgrade, OpenAI has significantly increased the message limit for Plus and Team users, jumping from 50 messages per day with o1-mini to 150 messages per day with o3-mini. Additionally, o3-mini now integrates with search, providing users with up-to-date answers and links to relevant sources. This feature is an early prototype as OpenAI continues refining search capabilities across its reasoning models.

For the first time, free users can also try OpenAI o3-mini by selecting ‘Reason’ in the message composer or regenerating a response. This marks a milestone as it’s the first reasoning model made available for free in ChatGPT.

Designed for Speed and Precision

While OpenAI o1 remains the go-to model for general knowledge, OpenAI o3-mini is built for tasks that require technical accuracy and quick thinking. In ChatGPT, o3-mini operates with a medium reasoning effort, balancing speed and accuracy for optimal performance. Paid users also have access to o3-mini-high, a more advanced version that delivers deeper insights with slightly longer response times. Pro users enjoy unlimited access to both versions.

Optimized for STEM and Advanced Reasoning

Like its predecessor, OpenAI o3-mini is optimized for STEM-related tasks, excelling in mathematics, coding, and science. When set to medium reasoning effort, it matches OpenAI o1 in complex problem-solving while delivering responses more quickly.

Note: STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

Mathematics: With low reasoning effort, OpenAI o3-mini achieves comparable performance with OpenAI o1-mini, while with medium effort, o3-mini achieves comparable performance with o1. Meanwhile, with high reasoning effort, o3-mini outperforms both OpenAI o1-mini and OpenAI o1, where the gray shaded regions show the performance of majority vote (consensus) with 64 samples. — Competition Math (AIME 2024) Credit: OpenAI

PhD-level science: On PhD-level biology, chemistry, and physics questions, with low reasoning effort, OpenAI o3-mini achieves performance above OpenAI o1-mini. With high effort, o3-mini achieves comparable performance with o1. — PhD-level Science Questions (GPQA Diamond) Credit: OpenAI

Competition coding: On Codeforces competitive programming, OpenAI o3-mini achieves progressively higher Elo scores with increased reasoning effort, all outperforming o1-mini. With medium reasoning effort, it matches o1’s performance — Competition Code (Codeforces) Credit: OpenAI

Expert evaluations show that o3-mini provides clearer and more accurate answers compared to o1-mini. Testers preferred o3-mini's responses 56% of the time, noting a 39% reduction in major errors on difficult, real-world questions. This model also demonstrates strong performance in rigorous intelligence and reasoning benchmarks like AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Examination) and GPQA (Graduate-Level Google-Proof Question Answering).

Model Speed and Performance

With intelligence comparable to OpenAI o1, OpenAI o3-mini delivers faster performance and improved efficiency. Beyond the STEM evaluations highlighted above, o3-mini demonstrates superior results in additional math and factuality evaluations with medium reasoning effort. In A/B testing, o3-mini delivered responses 24% faster than o1-mini, with an average response time of 7.7 seconds compared to 10.16 seconds.

Latency: o3-mini has an avg 2500ms faster time to first token than o1-mini. — Latency comparison between o1-mini and o3-mini (medium) Credit: OpenAI

Safety Measures

One of the key techniques used to ensure OpenAI o3-mini responds safely is deliberative alignment, where the model is trained to reason about human-written safety specifications before answering user prompts. Similar to OpenAI o1, o3-mini significantly surpasses GPT-4o on challenging safety and jailbreak evaluations. Before deployment, OpenAI carefully assessed o3-mini's safety risks using extensive testing, external red-teaming, and safety evaluations. The insights from early-access safety testers were instrumental in refining the model.

What’s Next?

The release of OpenAI o3-mini marks another step in OpenAI’s mission to push the boundaries of cost-effective intelligence. By optimizing reasoning for STEM domains while keeping costs low, OpenAI continues making high-quality AI more accessible. This model builds on a track record of cost reductions—cutting per-token pricing by 95% since launching GPT-4—while maintaining top-tier reasoning capabilities.

As AI adoption expands, OpenAI remains committed to leading the industry by developing models that balance intelligence, efficiency, and safety at scale.

Why Choose o3-mini?

Higher Speed, Lower Latency: Get faster, more efficient responses with reduced wait times.
Stronger STEM Performance: Enhanced reasoning capabilities for math, coding, and science tasks.
Expanded Access: Now available for free users, with increased message limits for Plus and Team users.
Integrated Search: Find real-time information with linked sources.
Advanced Model Option: Pro users can unlock o3-mini-high for even deeper insights.

OpenAI o3-mini is a game-changer for anyone tackling complex reasoning, coding challenges, or scientific inquiries. Whether you're a student, developer, or researcher, this model provides a powerful, efficient, and accessible AI experience.

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