GPT-4.1 vs GPT-4o

1. Smartest non-reasoning model

• Highest intelligence among models without a reasoning step.
• Great for tasks where speed + accuracy matter without deep chain-of-thought.

2. Excellent instruction following

• Very strong at structured tasks, formatting, and precise execution.
• Ideal for productized workflows and deterministic outputs.

3. Reliable tool calling

• Works smoothly with Web Search, File Search, Image Generation, and Code Interpreter.
• Supports MCP and advanced tool-enabled API flows.

4. Large 1M-token context window

• Allows extremely long conversations, large documents, and multi-file use cases.
• Handles context-heavy tasks without requiring chunking.

5. Low latency (no reasoning step)

• Faster responses than GPT-5 family when reasoning mode isn't required.
• More predictable timing for production use.

6. Multimodal input

• Accepts text + image.
• Output is text only.

7. Supports fine-tuning

• Can be fine-tuned for specialized tasks.
• Also supports distillation for smaller custom models.

1. High-intelligence, general-purpose model

• Strong reasoning, creativity, summarization, and problem-solving.
• Great balance of speed, accuracy, and cost.

2. Multimodal input support

• Accepts text + image inputs for visual reasoning, extraction, or description.
• Output is text only, making it predictable for production.

3. Excellent for structured and unstructured tasks

• Performs well on Q&A, writing, analysis, classification, chat, and planning.
• Supports Structured Outputs, making it suitable for deterministic workflows.

4. Strong tool-use capabilities

• Supports function calling, API orchestration, and tool-augmented workflows.
• Integrates well with assistants, batch operations, and automation pipelines.

5. Large context for complex tasks

• 128K context allows multi-document reasoning, multi-step conversations, and large input payloads.

6. Production-ready reliability

• Stable outputs, predictable behaviors, and broad modality coverage.
• Supported across all major API endpoints.

7. Lower latency than o-series reasoning models

• Faster responses due to no dedicated reasoning step.
• Ideal for interactive or near-real-time applications.

8. Fine-tuning and distillation supported

• Enables specialization for domain-specific tasks.
• Distillation helps create smaller, efficient custom models.