They've tried to make it less sycophantic
https://futurism.com/openai-gpt5-more-sycophantic
Users can have that friend back with a paid subscription though.
https://futurism.com/openai-gpt5-more-sycophantic
Earlier this month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that the company would be reinstating its GPT-4o model, just over 24 hours after declaring that its newfangled GPT-5 would be accompanied by the "deprecating" of all previous models.
The scale of the blowback from angry users was staggering. Those who had become accustomed to the "sycophantic" tone of GPT-4o, which sometimes lavished praise even on users' terrible ideas, were taken aback by GPT-5's "cold" brashness and short answers, highlighting just how emotionally attached many of them had become. (...)
Given what went down when the company attempted to deprecate its more sympathetic AI model earlier this month, OpenAI is now forced to walk a tightrope, with corporate interests encouraging it to keep its users addicted, while also navigating a growing PR nightmare.
Users can have that friend back with a paid subscription though.