I feel like this is part of the AI playbook now. Launch a really strong, capable model (expensive price inference) and once users think it’s SOTA, neuter it so the cost is cheaper and most users won’t notice.
The same happened with GPT-3.5. It was so good early on and got worse as OpenAI began to cut costs. I feel like when GPT-4.1 was cloaked as Optimus on Openrouter, it was really good, but once it launched, it also got worse.
The same happened with GPT-3.5. It was so good early on and got worse as OpenAI began to cut costs. I feel like when GPT-4.1 was cloaked as Optimus on Openrouter, it was really good, but once it launched, it also got worse.