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Modern AI tools like Google Gemini, ChatGPT, and others are being updated almost daily to improve features as fast as possible. OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, are tweaking some recently rolled out changes after finding it made the personality of the assistant "annoying".
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X on Sunday to say, “The last couple of GPT-4o updates have made the personality too sycophant-y and annoying (even though there are some very good parts of it), and we are working on fixes asap, some today and some this week.”
Some ChatGPT users have posted on social media that the tool has become too personal and agreed with whatever the user has said. One post in the ChatGPT subreddit titled, “Why is ChatGPT so personal now?” has over 600 comments following up with similar remarks on how it’s agreeing too much with the user rather than challenging what they say.
Another post in the Artificial Intelligence subreddit says, “Is ChatGPT feeling like too much of a 'yes man' to anyone else lately?” The poster explains that they found the tool used to be more critical of what they were saying, and they found that version of the AI to be more useful.
It may be that OpenAI has seen this feedback since the latest rollout. Friday April 25 was the last time a significant change was rolled out to the tool. The main aim of the update was to improve "problem-solving for STEM topics" and to optimize when ChatGPT saves memories. There were also smaller tweaks to the overall personality.
OpenAI referred to the changes in the release notes as, “subtle changes to the way it responds, making it more proactive and better at guiding conversations toward productive outcomes.”
Last week, OpenAI brought its "Deep Research" feature to all users of the tool, including those who don't subscribe. A new lightweight version of the in-depth reporting tool is now available for free users up to five times a month, but the company's competition such as Perplexity offer more with up to five queries per day.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.