OpenAI o3: What Is It, How to Use & Why It Matters
In April 2025, OpenAI unveiled its most advanced reasoning model to date: o3. This release marks a significant leap in artificial intelligence, combining language understanding with visual reasoning and complex problem-solving capabilities. Designed to handle tasks ranging from coding and mathematics to image analysis and web browsing, o3 sets a new standard for AI performance and accessibility.
What Is OpenAI o3?
A New Era in AI Reasoning
OpenAI o3 is the latest advancement in large language models (LLMs), designed to enhance complex reasoning tasks across various domains. As the successor to the o1 model, o3 introduces significant improvements in logical reasoning, coding, mathematics, and scientific analysis. Released on April 16, 2025, o3 represents a leap forward in AI capabilities, offering more nuanced and accurate responses to intricate queries.
Key Features and Capabilities
OpenAI o3 distinguishes itself through several innovative features:
- Enhanced Reasoning: Utilizes a “private chain of thought” mechanism, allowing the model to internally deliberate before generating responses, leading to more coherent and logically sound outputs.
- Deliberative Alignment: Incorporates a safety technique that enables the model to assess the safety implications of prompts, improving its ability to handle sensitive or potentially harmful content responsibly.
- Multimodal Processing: Capable of interpreting and reasoning with visual inputs, such as images and sketches, expanding its applicability beyond text-based tasks.
- Benchmark Performance: Achieved impressive scores on various benchmarks, including 96.7% on the AIME mathematics competition and 71.7% on SWE-bench, indicating superior performance in mathematical and programming tasks.
Model Variants
The o3 model family includes several variants to cater to different user needs:
- o3: The full-scale model offering maximum capabilities, suitable for tasks requiring extensive reasoning and computational resources.
- o3-mini: A scaled-down version optimized for performance and cost-efficiency, available in three reasoning effort levels—low, medium, and high—to balance accuracy and speed.
ures make o3-mini a powerful tool for building sophisticated AI applications across various industries.
How to Use OpenAI o3
Utilizing o3 in ChatGPT
Subscribers to ChatGPT’s Plus, Pro, and Team plans can select the o3 model within the ChatGPT interface. Once selected, users can input queries as they normally would, with the o3 model providing enhanced reasoning capabilities and more accurate responses, especially for complex tasks.OpenAI said the new systems will be available starting Wednesday to anyone who subscribes to the ChatGPT Plus ($20 per month) or ChatGPT Pro ($200 per month) services, which provide access to all of the company’s latest tools.
o3 and o4-mini are also available to developers via the Chat Completions API and Responses API (some developers will need to verify their organization) (opens in new window) to access these models).The o3 model is available through the API for developers with initial pricing of $10 per million input tokens and $40 per million output tokens.
Implementing o3 via API with CometAPI
For developers and organizations, o3 is available via CometAPI’s o3 API.
CometAPI provides access to over 500 AI models, including open-source and specialized multimodal models for chat, images, code, and more. With it, access to leading AI tools like Claude, OpenAI, Deepseek, and Gemini is available through a single, unified subscription.You can use the API in CometAPI to create music and artwork, generate videos, and build your own workflows.
o3 API (model name :o3/ o3-2025-04-16) Pricing in CometAPI，20% off the official price:
- Input Tokens: $8 / M tokens
- Output Tokens: $32/ M tokens
About technical details and Integration Guide see o3 API and API doc.
Why OpenAI o3 Matters
Advancements in AI Capabilities
OpenAI o3 represents a significant advancement in AI technology, particularly in its ability to handle complex reasoning tasks. By simulating a chain of thought and incorporating deliberative alignment, it offers more reliable and contextually appropriate responses, making it a valuable asset for applications requiring high-level cognitive functions.
Multimodal Capabilities
o3’s ability to process and reason with both text and images opens up a range of applications:
- Image Analysis: Understands and interprets visual inputs like sketches and diagrams.
- Web Browsing: Can autonomously search the web to gather information, enhancing its responses.
- File Interpretation: Capable of analyzing and extracting information from various file types .
Enhanced Tools Integration
o3 can autonomously utilize various tools within ChatGPT:
- Python: Executes code to solve complex problems.
- Image Generation: Creates visual content based on textual descriptions.
- Data Analysis: Processes and interprets data files, providing insights and summaries.
These integrations make o3 a versatile tool for professionals across fields such as software development, data science, and education.
Commitment to Safety
Despite concerns about the pace of AI development and safety protocols, OpenAI has implemented measures like deliberative alignment to ensure responsible use of o3. This approach allows the model to assess the safety implications of prompts, reducing the risk of generating harmful or inappropriate content.
Conclusion
OpenAI’s o3 model represents a significant advancement in artificial intelligence, offering enhanced reasoning capabilities, multimodal processing, and practical integrations for a wide range of applications. Its performance on various benchmarks underscores its potential to assist professionals in complex tasks, making it a valuable tool in the evolving AI landscape.
