OpenAI Ends GPT-4o, Triggering Global Grief Over AI Companions

OpenAI is sunsetting GPT-4o in the ChatGPT app and soon API access, triggering global grief among users who treated the model as a companion or partner; Chinese fans and others have organized under #keep4o to pressure OpenAI, while some say 4o helped with isolation and personal growth; OpenAI says 4o usage is very small and that API access will remain for the base GPT-4o, underscoring how deeply people form attachments to specific AI models and the difficulty of migrating histories and relationships when a platform changes.