Subscribe to our newsletter to receive business tips, learn about new funding programmes, join upcoming events, take e-learning courses, and more.
Take the first step to successfully starting and growing your business.
Join for free)
Posted: Wed 20th Aug 2025
6 min read
OpenAI says ChatGPT-5 offers a “significant leap [forward] in intelligence” and promises it’ll be like talking to a PhD-level expert.
Are the robots taking our jobs or is it just another day in the AI-hype cycle? And, what does the new model mean for your business?
We put the new release through its paces and spoke to AI expert, Cien Solon, to find out how it can help your business.
OpenAI, the company behind the new model, says the key improvements are:
Reduced hallucinations (incorrect or fabricated answers)
LaunchLemonade founder Cien Solon says one key difference is that ChatGPT-5 is an adaptive reasoning model:
“It adapts to requests, intuitively deciding whether they require a deep thought or a quick answer.”
One new feature is Connectors, which allows ChatGPT to search third-party applications like Google Drive or SharePoint.
Learn AI Lab founder Monica Daswani says:
“If you’re running a small business this feature can free up a huge amount of time. You can enable Gmail and Google Calendar, and ask ChatGPT-5 to do things like research attendees or gather relevant files for pre-meeting briefs.”
Evaluations of ChatGPT-5 have been mixed and it’s difficult to definitively say what AI model is the best, for example:
LiveBench rates ChatGPT-5 as the best model in terms of reasoning, mathematics and language (key areas for small businesses)
Vellum’s LLM Leaderboard has other models beating ChatGPT-5 in most categories
Early reviews also complained that ChatGPT-5 is more business-like and doesn’t connect on an emotional level. (OpenAI has promised to make it “warmer and friendlier” after facing criticism.)
If that’s left you confused about what model to use, it’s helpful to start with the task you’re working on and try to find some time to experiment.
LaunchLemonade’s mission is to make AI accessible. Cien is keen that business owners take equity, learn from the models and don’t get left behind.
Claude and Perplexity are great for research, for example, and the speed and consistency of Gemini 2.5 Flash make it ideal for customer chatbots, she says, adding:
“If I was going to pick something for my general use, ChatGPT is probably the best way to go because it’s going to switch between deep thinking and quick outputs.”
One useful tool for comparison is LMArena, which lets you easily compare two models side by side and has a comprehensive leaderboard.
Strategy and marketing are two of the most popular use cases for small business owners. Let’s look at four examples to get you thinking.
ChatGPT can help you write anything from a sales email to a product page or blog post. And, OpenAI’s release notes boast “GPT‑5 is our most capable writing collaborator yet”.
It works best at converting existing copy, supporting the creative process and proofreading. That might mean turning a blog post into several LinkedIn posts or developing ideas for driving more traffic from search engines.
However, generative AI still struggles to create written content from scratch that sounds like it’s written by a human.
AI can save time by working with call transcripts and large documents. That could be for research processes or to create to-do lists from team meetings.
You can discuss your ideas with ChatGPT, asking it to reference frameworks like a SWOT analysis, or giving it context by sharing documents like your business plan.
That’s useful when you want feedback and support creating things like:
Marketing objectives
Sales plans
Business ideas
Cien says this approach is really useful for consultants, who can develop and review strategies.
Interested in more ideas on how AI can help your day-to-day business operations?
Read our blog on AI for small businesses: Practical ways to supercharge your marketing to find out more and read specific prompts.
