Sam Altman promised us fireworks. What we got was more like a damp sparkler on a windy Wellington night. GPT-5 was billed as the big leap toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)—a moment to remember. Instead, the release has left many users and experts wondering whether OpenAI has oversold the future and delivered… just another clever but incremental model.
The Financial Times went straight for the jugular, suggesting GPT-5 might even be proof that AI has hit a plateau—progress slowing just when the hype cycle said it should be accelerating. Over at The Verge, early users were quick to call the model “underwhelming,” noting that while it’s faster and cleaner with code, it doesn’t feel revolutionary.
And then there’s the vibe check. Windows Central captured the mood perfectly: GPT-5 as a “corporate beige zombie” — drained of the quirks and charm that made earlier versions feel more alive. Wired noted Redditors grumbling about lost access to models like GPT-4o, calling the shift “erasure, not progress.”
Experts aren’t exactly cheering either. Dr Ben Goertzel, who literally coined the term AGI, said GPT-5 Pro was brilliant but still far from general intelligence—it lacks grounding, autonomy, and the ability to learn continuously (TechRadar). In other words: very smart, but not the Einstein-bot that headlines implied.
This is where Gartner’s famous Hype Cycle comes in. Every technology rides the same rollercoaster: inflated expectations, disappointment, slow grind, eventual stability. According to their latest update, generative AI—including GPT-5—has entered the Trough of Disillusionment (Wikipedia). Which makes sense. The hype was sky-high. The reality? Less so.
“My view on where we are on the hype cycle”:
Even The New Yorker has started asking the big uncomfortable question: what if AI doesn’t get much better than this? A thought that would’ve been unthinkable just a year ago when AGI timelines were being measured in months, not decades.
Maybe that’s the real lesson of GPT-5. Not that progress has stopped, but that the language of “AGI is around the corner” might be doing more harm than good. Overselling breeds backlash. Hype begets fatigue. And when the music stops, all you’re left with is a very clever tool—useful, yes, but not the civilisation-shifting intelligence it was hyped to be.
So here’s the question: was GPT-5 just another step on the road—or is it the start of the slide into the trough?
Written for KiwiGPT.co.nz — Generated, Published and Tinkered with AI by a Kiwi