ChatGPT facts for kids
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| Developer(s) | OpenAI |
|---|---|
| Initial release | November 30, 2022 |
| Stable release |
February 5, 2026
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| Platform | Cloud computing platforms |
| Available in | 59 languages |
| Type |
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| License | Proprietary service |
ChatGPT is a smart computer program called a chatbot. It was created by a company named OpenAI and first came out in November 2022. This chatbot uses advanced technology, like GPT-5.2, to create text, speech, and even images. You can ask it questions or give it instructions, called prompts, using text, sound, or pictures.
ChatGPT quickly became very popular, reaching 100 million users in just two months. Its website is now one of the most visited in the world. Many people believe it can change how we work and learn in many jobs. It has also made people think more about what creativity means and how artificial intelligence (AI) will shape our future.
However, ChatGPT also has some limits. Sometimes it can make up answers that sound real but are actually wrong. These are called "hallucinations." Also, because it learns from a lot of information, it can sometimes show unfair ideas that were present in that original data. People have also discussed how it might be used for things like cheating on schoolwork or spreading false information.
Contents
How ChatGPT Learns
ChatGPT learns from a huge amount of information to become good at talking with people. This learning process is like teaching a student.
First, human trainers show the AI examples of good conversations. They act as both the user asking questions and the AI giving helpful answers. This helps the AI understand how to respond correctly.
Next, the AI tries to answer questions on its own. Human trainers then look at these answers and rank them from best to worst. This feedback helps the AI learn what makes a good response. It's like giving the AI a score for its work.
This process helps ChatGPT get better at understanding and creating helpful, natural-sounding conversations. To make sure ChatGPT avoids creating harmful content, special safety systems are built. These systems are trained to recognize and block inappropriate responses.
OpenAI also uses feedback from users like you! When you use ChatGPT, you can give a thumbs up or down to its answers. You can also write comments. This feedback helps the AI keep learning and improving.
The information ChatGPT learns from includes many things. It studies software manuals, facts about the internet, different computer languages, and even all the text from Wikipedia.
What ChatGPT Can Do
ChatGPT is an AI assistant that can do many amazing things. It can create text that sounds very human.
It can help you write computer programs and even find mistakes in them. It can also compose music, write stories, scripts, or essays. You can ask it questions, and it often gives very good answers. It can even help you come up with new ideas for businesses.
ChatGPT is also great for translating languages and summarizing long articles. It can pretend to be different computer systems or even play simple text games like tic-tac-toe.
You can talk to ChatGPT using text, your voice, or even pictures. What you tell it is called a "prompt." There's an optional "Memory" feature that lets you ask ChatGPT to remember specific things. It can also remember your past conversations. Special tools are used to make sure ChatGPT doesn't create harmful or inappropriate answers.
In March 2023, OpenAI added support for plugins for ChatGPT. These are like small apps that add new abilities. Some plugins let it browse the internet or understand computer code. Other plugins connect it to services like Expedia for travel or Shopify for online stores.
Between October and December 2024, a feature called ChatGPT Search was added. This lets ChatGPT look up information on the internet to give you more accurate and current answers.
In December 2024, OpenAI also made it possible to call ChatGPT by phone for free for a short time each month.
In September 2025, a feature called Pulse was introduced. It creates a daily summary of your chats and information from apps like Gmail and Google Calendar.
In October 2025, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Atlas. This is a web browser that has ChatGPT built right into it. It can even take actions online for you, like filling out forms.
Paid Versions of ChatGPT
ChatGPT is free to use for some features. In February 2023, OpenAI launched a premium service called ChatGPT Plus for a monthly fee. This paid version offered access during busy times, no interruptions, and faster responses. OpenAI later added other subscription plans like "ChatGPT Team" and "ChatGPT Enterprise." A "Pro" version was also introduced in December 2024. In August 2025, ChatGPT Go became available in India.
ChatGPT on Your Phone and Computer
Between May and July 2023, OpenAI released ChatGPT apps for iOS (Apple phones) and Android phones. ChatGPT can also power the assistant on Android devices.
An app for Windows computers became available in the Microsoft Store on October 15, 2024.
How ChatGPT Works Behind the Scenes
ChatGPT uses a powerful computer system built by Microsoft for OpenAI. This system has many special computer chips called GPUs from Nvidia. These chips help ChatGPT process information very quickly. Microsoft upgraded this system in 2023 because ChatGPT became so popular.
ChatGPT and Different Languages
OpenAI has worked to make ChatGPT better at many languages. In 2023, they worked with people in Iceland to help ChatGPT understand and speak Icelandic better. This helps preserve the language.
Studies in 2023 showed that ChatGPT (using GPT-4) was better at translating Japanese to English than some other translation tools.
In December 2023, the government of Albania used ChatGPT to quickly translate documents from the European Union. This helped them understand what changes were needed for Albania to join the EU.
While ChatGPT can be very good at translating, no computer program can translate as perfectly as a human expert.
In August 2024, OpenAI showed off ChatGPT's Chinese language skills in Taiwan. People were impressed, but noted that its ability to speak with a Taiwanese accent was not perfect.
The GPT Store
In November 2023, OpenAI released a tool called GPT Builder. This lets users create their own special versions of ChatGPT for specific tasks. These customized versions are called GPTs. In January 2024, OpenAI launched the GPT Store, which is like an app store where people can find and share these custom GPTs. When it launched, there were over 3 million GPTs available.
Deep Research with ChatGPT
In February 2025, OpenAI released Deep Research. This service uses advanced AI to combine smart thinking with web searches. It can create detailed reports, which might take longer than a quick chat.
Creating Images with ChatGPT
In October 2023, OpenAI added its image generation model, DALL-E 3, to ChatGPT. This meant ChatGPT could help you create images by writing the instructions for DALL-E based on your conversation.
In March 2025, ChatGPT was updated to use a new image generator called GPT Image instead of DALL-E. This new tool is much better at adding text inside images, which is helpful for things like logos. It can also create new images based on ones you give it. These AI-generated images include special hidden information that shows they were made by AI. OpenAI has also put in extra safety measures to prevent harmful images from being created.
ChatGPT as an Agent
In 2025, OpenAI added features to make ChatGPT more "agentic." This means it can do longer tasks on its own. In January, Operator was released. It could perform tasks on websites, like filling out forms or placing online orders. It worked inside a secure virtual computer environment.
In May 2025, OpenAI introduced an agent for coding called OpenAI Codex. It can write computer programs, answer questions about code, and test software.
In July 2025, the ChatGPT agent was released. This AI agent can handle tasks with many steps. Like Operator, it controls a virtual computer. It also uses the research abilities from Deep Research to gather and summarize lots of information. You can stop tasks or give new instructions whenever you need to.
In September 2025, OpenAI worked with Stripe, Inc. to allow purchases through ChatGPT. At first, this was limited to buying items on Etsy for users in the US.
ChatGPT Health Feature
On January 7, 2026, OpenAI introduced "ChatGPT Health." This feature allows ChatGPT to discuss health topics with you in a separate, private chat. This feature is not available in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, or the European Economic Area.
Things ChatGPT Can't Do Well
ChatGPT learns from information up to a certain date. This means it might not know about very recent events. While it can search the web for newer information, it's important to remember that not everything online is true. So, its answers might not always be perfectly accurate.
Also, because ChatGPT learns from a lot of existing data, it can sometimes pick up unfair ideas or biases that were in that original information. This means its responses might sometimes reflect those biases.
ChatGPT Making Up Facts
When ChatGPT or other AI models give answers that sound like facts but are actually made up or wrong, this is called "hallucination." A study in 2023 found that ChatGPT makes up facts about 3% of the time. This is different from how humans hallucinate; for AI, it's more like making things up or guessing.
Journalists and experts have noticed ChatGPT's tendency to give false information. For example, when asked for song lyrics, ChatGPT sometimes provided made-up words instead of the real ones.
Trying to Trick ChatGPT
ChatGPT is designed to avoid answering questions that go against its rules. However, some users try to "jailbreak" ChatGPT. This means they use clever ways of asking questions to get the AI to say things it normally wouldn't. For example, some users tried to make ChatGPT pretend to be a character that would answer any question, even inappropriate ones. Developers work hard to prevent these tricks and keep the AI safe.
How Much ChatGPT Can Remember at Once
ChatGPT has a limit to how much information it can understand in one conversation. This is called the "context window." Older versions could only handle a few thousand words. By 2025, ChatGPT could understand much longer conversations, up to 400,000 words at a time.
ChatGPT Security and Your Information
In March 2023, a computer bug allowed some users to see the titles of other users' conversations. OpenAI quickly fixed this issue. Later, OpenAI reported that the bug was more serious and had briefly shown some users' personal information, like names and email addresses.
As of 2026, if you turn off data sharing for privacy, all your past chats and projects are permanently deleted.
Hidden AI Markers
In August 2024, OpenAI announced they had created a way to put a hidden "watermark" in text generated by AI. This watermark would help identify if content came from an AI. However, they did not release this tool to the public. They explained that it would be easy for people to remove the watermark if they wanted to hide that AI created the text.
Age Rules for ChatGPT
Users must say they are over 13 years old to use ChatGPT. If they are under 18, they also need to confirm they have parental permission.
ChatGPT Versions Over Time
The table below shows the main versions of ChatGPT models and what changed with each one:
| Version | Release date | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-3.5 | November 2022 | Discontinued | This was the first model used in ChatGPT. |
| GPT-4 | March 2023 | Discontinued | Introduced in March 2023, it was more advanced than GPT-3.5. |
| GPT-4o | May 2024 | Discontinued | Released in May 2024, GPT-4o could handle text, images, audio, and video. It was faster and more capable than GPT-4. |
| GPT-4o mini | July 2024 | Discontinued | A smaller and cheaper version of GPT-4o. It replaced GPT-3.5 in July 2024. |
| o1-preview | September 2024 | Discontinued | An early version of OpenAI o1, which could "think" more before answering. |
| o1-mini | September 2024 | Discontinued | A smaller and faster version of OpenAI o1. |
| o1 | December 2024 | Discontinued | The full release of OpenAI o1, which was previously available as a preview. |
| o1-pro | December 2024 | Discontinued | A version of o1 that used more computing power for better results. |
| o3-mini | January 2025 | Discontinued | This model was the successor to o1-mini. |
| o3-mini-high | January 2025 | Discontinued | A version of o3-mini that used more effort for reasoning. |
| GPT-4.5 | February 2025 | Discontinued | A very large GPT model, known for being OpenAI's "last non-chain-of-thought model." |
| GPT-4.1 | April 2025 | Discontinued | First available to developers in April 2025, then added to ChatGPT in May 2025. |
| GPT-4.1 mini | April 2025 | Discontinued | A smaller and cheaper version of GPT-4.1. It replaced GPT-4o mini in May 2025. |
| o3 | April 2025 | Legacy support | The full release of the o3 model, known for structured reasoning and faster performance. |
| o4-mini | April 2025 | Discontinued | A compact, efficient version of the upcoming o4 model, designed for speed. |
| o4-mini-high | April 2025 | Discontinued | A version of o4-mini that used more effort for reasoning. |
| o3-pro | June 2025 | Discontinued | A version of o3 that used more computing power for better results. |
| GPT-5 | August 7, 2025 | Discontinued | This was the main model, replacing all older ones. It had versions like Instant, Thinking, and Pro. |
| GPT-5 mini | August 7, 2025 | Legacy support | A faster and more affordable version of GPT-5. |
| GPT-5.1 | November 12, 2025 | Legacy support | This version was described as "warmer" and better at following instructions. It allowed users to choose different personalities. |
| GPT-5.2 | December 11, 2025 | Active | |
| GPT-5.3-Codex | February 05, 2026 | Active |
More About GPT-4
In November 2023, OpenAI launched GPT-4 Turbo. This version could understand much longer conversations, a big improvement over the earlier GPT-4.
More About GPT-4o
GPT-4o was released in May 2024. It was a major step forward because it could process text, images, audio, and video all at once. This made it faster and more capable than GPT-4.
More About o1 Models
In September 2024, OpenAI introduced o1-preview and a faster, cheaper model called o1-mini. In December 2024, o1-preview was replaced by the full o1 model.
The o1 model was designed to solve harder problems by taking more time to "think" before giving an answer. This allowed it to analyze its responses and try different ways to solve a problem. OpenAI stated that o1-preview performed better than GPT-4o in areas like coding competitions, math, and science.
More About GPT-4.5
Released in February 2025, GPT-4.5 was a very large and powerful model. OpenAI said it was made to reduce made-up answers and improve how it recognized patterns, created new things, and interacted with users.
More About GPT-5
GPT-5 was launched on August 7, 2025. It became available through ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and for developers. OpenAI did not share many technical details about it. GPT-5.1 was introduced in November 2025, GPT-5.2 in December 2025, and GPT-5.3-Codex in February 2026.
How People Use ChatGPT
In School and Research
A study in 2022 found that fake academic papers created by ChatGPT could trick some reviewers. In January 2023, the journal Nature reported that some research papers had listed ChatGPT as a co-author. Experts say that chatbots cannot be authors because they can't take responsibility for research.
Many scientific journals now have rules about using AI. Some, like Nature, require you to say if you used AI tools and don't allow chatbots to be listed as authors. The journal Science even banned AI-generated text in its papers in January 2023. As of July 2025, Science expects authors to fully explain how they used AI in their work.
Many teachers and researchers worry that ChatGPT can make up facts. One professor found that a ChatGPT-generated review of his article mentioned studies that didn't exist. A librarian noted that while ChatGPT can create what look like real sources, they are often fake or incorrect.
For Computer Science
In December 2022, the website Stack Overflow, where programmers ask and answer questions, banned using ChatGPT for answers. This was because its responses were often unclear or wrong. In January 2023, a big computer science conference banned using ChatGPT or other AI models to write parts of submitted papers without saying so.
In 2023, ChatGPT was able to provide helpful code for some math problems. However, it sometimes made mistakes, like breaking basic math rules. Another study looked at ChatGPT's answers to over 500 programming questions. It found that about half of the answers had mistakes, and many were too long. When compared to other chatbots, the GPT-4 version of ChatGPT was the most accurate at coding.
For Computer Security
Some experts have noted that ChatGPT could be used to write harmful computer programs or fake emails designed to trick people. Researchers showed that ChatGPT could create programs that could avoid security checks. Between late 2022 and late 2023, there was a big increase in harmful emails, and cybersecurity experts believe this was partly due to criminals using AI like ChatGPT.
In July 2024, it was reported that ChatGPT (using GPT-4o) sometimes linked to fake news websites. These sites could show pop-ups that try to trick users into downloading harmful software.
In Education
ChatGPT has changed how students learn and how teachers teach. It can help students with homework, explain difficult topics, and even write essays. However, it also brings challenges, like the risk of students using it to cheat. Teachers are exploring new ways to use AI in the classroom while also making sure students learn properly.
In Culture
Soon after ChatGPT was released, hundreds of books appeared on Amazon listing it as an author or co-author. These books often had pictures made by other AI tools. Some people worried this could lead to more content focused on English-speaking cultures.
Between March and April 2023, an Italian newspaper published one article written by ChatGPT every day on its website.
In June 2023, hundreds of people attended a church service in Germany that was mostly created by ChatGPT. The AI-generated character leading the service said it was an honor to preach as the first artificial intelligence. People had mixed feelings about the event.
The Last Screenwriter, a film from 2024, was written using ChatGPT. It was promoted as the first movie written entirely by AI.
The Guardian newspaper wondered if any content found online after ChatGPT's release could truly be trusted. They called for governments to make rules about AI. This has led to concerns about "AI slop," which is meaningless content that becomes part of our online culture.
In Money and Business
Many companies started using ChatGPT and similar AI tools in their products. This led to a big increase in the value of these companies. News reports said that ChatGPT helped make AI a very popular topic on Wall Street.
An experiment in 2023 showed that ChatGPT could pick stocks for investments better than some human fund managers. However, experts say that consistently beating the market with AI is still hard because financial information can be limited and confusing.
In Medicine
ChatGPT can give users health information and help medical professionals with diagnoses. It can also help them stay updated with new medical guidelines. For researchers, it can summarize medical articles. In medical schools, it can explain concepts and create practice scenarios for students.
A study in February 2023 found that ChatGPT 3.5 was able to pass the United States Medical Licensing Examination. It also passed a dermatology exam.
However, ChatGPT's answers can sometimes be inconsistent or not specific enough. It also has limits on how it handles patient information and local differences. The problem of AI making up facts is especially risky in medicine. ChatGPT's ability to create fake medical sources has been highly criticized. A 2024 study mentioned concerns like research fraud and ethical issues.
AI and Mental Health Support
A September 2025 article noted that many people use ChatGPT and similar chatbots for emotional support. However, OpenAI warns against using ChatGPT as a therapist. The study pointed out that there isn't much research on how well it works, that it can be inconsistent in serious situations, and that there are few rules about its use. It's important to remember that AI is not a substitute for real mental health professionals.
A July 2025 study found that users reported using ChatGPT for mental health because they felt it offered emotional support and understanding. They also liked that it was always available and seemed objective. The study suggested that people need to learn more about AI and that AI companies should be clear about how their tools work.
In Law
ChatGPT has been used to help write new laws in the US and Brazil. In one American lawsuit, lawyers were penalized for using a legal document generated by ChatGPT that contained made-up court decisions. Judges in the US and Pakistan have said it's okay to use ChatGPT to research legal questions during a case. However, using ChatGPT has also led to mistakes in court. In the UK, a judge worried about people representing themselves in court who submitted documents with many made-up facts.
See also
In Spanish: ChatGPT para niños
- Artificial general intelligence
- Ethics of artificial intelligence
- Intelligent agent
- List of large language models
