ChatGPT’s new o1-mini AI model, previously codenamed ‘Project Strawberry’, launched last week and is now rolling out to free users.
o1-mini and o1-preview are new AI models with impressive reasoning abilities that can quickly solve riddles, answer equations, and even show you the thought process behind their decisions. If you want to see what o1-mini and o1-preview are capable of, check out Eric Hal Schwartz’s test that showed that the AI model was incredibly good at solving even the most difficult riddles.
At launch, OpenAI promised that free users would be able to test the reasoning model in the future. And that time has already come, as free users can now access o1-mini without subscribing to ChatGPT Plus.
There is a caveat though, as neither I nor my colleague have free access to o1-mini, so it seems you’ll have to be one of the lucky few who gets to use ‘Project Strawberry’ for free right now. OpenAI hasn’t confirmed how it will determine which free accounts get access, but we expect it to be a slow rollout that should give everyone access eventually.
ChatGPT free users now have access to the o1 mini model. Not sure how many prompts are allowed per day but this is a good update. pic.twitter.com/uUVOTYLghUSeptember 17, 2024
o1 mini free
Currently o1-mini is a standalone AI model that you need to select before asking a complex question. To check if you have free access, simply log in to ChatGPT on your desktop and click on ‘ChatGPT Auto’. If you are lucky enough to have free access to o1-mini, you can select the AI model from the dropdown menu.
I have been testing o1-mini over the past few days with my ChatGPT Plus subscription and I am really impressed with the ability of the AI model to solve the most complex riddles. Internally, o1-mini has been used to solve puzzles such as New York Times Connections and Wordle, a pretty impressive feat for artificial intelligence.
There is no further information available about the free version of o1-mini, such as how many questions you can ask per day. But just having access to the free version is a big step forward in improving ChatGPT for the general public, without having to sign up for a monthly fee.
