OpenAI Retires GPT-4o and Legacy Models Amid Sycophancy Concerns and User Backlash

Summary

On February 13, 2026, OpenAI officially retired GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and o4-mini from ChatGPT, making GPT-5.2 the default model. The retirement had been telegraphed since August 2025 but was delayed due to user backlash. OpenAI stated that only 0.1% of users still chose GPT-4o daily -- but with 800 million weekly active users, that still represents roughly 800,000 people. The GPT-4o retirement is notable for two reasons beyond the routine model lifecycle. First, GPT-4o remains OpenAI'