OpenAI has launched o3-mini, a skimmed-down lightweight AI model, in what appears to be a strategic response to the growing popularity of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company that has been gaining traction with its efficient and cost-effective language models.
The release of o3 Mini marks OpenAI’s latest move in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, where smaller, optimised models are becoming a key battleground. While OpenAI has long been a leader in AI with its GPT-4 and GPT-5 models, the emergence of DeepSeek has shaken up the market, particularly in regions where cost and efficiency are major factors. OpenAI first previewed the o3-mini reasoning model in December 2024.
What is o3-mini?
According to OpenAI, o3-mini is designed to be a low-latency, energy-efficient model that delivers strong performance while requiring fewer computational resources. It is expected to be particularly useful for tasks like edge computing and on-device AI, affordable AI-powered applications and help developers looking for lighter AI models without sacrificing on the quality. Early reports suggest that O3 Mini offers better reasoning capabilities than previous smaller models, potentially giving it an edge over DeepSeek’s offerings.
Key features of o3-mini
OpenAI o3-mini is a new, small reasoning model designed for developers, offering features like function calling, structured outputs, and developer messages. It allows users to adjust the model’s reasoning effort (low, medium, high) to balance speed and complexity, making it handy for tasks like coding and problem-solving. It supports streaming and now integrates with search to provide up-to-date answers with links to web sources. It replaces o1-mini, offering higher rate limits (150 messages per day for Plus and Team users) and lower latency. However, o3-mini doesn’t support visual tasks, so developers should still use o1 for those.
o3-mini availability
It’s available to Plus, Team, and Pro users now, with Enterprise access coming in February. Free plan users can also also try OpenAI o3-mini by selecting ‘Reason’ in the message composer or by regenerating a response.
The DeepSeek disruption
DeepSeek, a Chinese AI advanced AI model, recently gained attention for its afforadability, efficiency, and accessibility, making it a serious challenger in the AI space. models. It is available for free on App Store and Play Store.
