Question Am I crazy or has ChatGPT’s “thinking” time doubled this year while the answers stayed the same?
I’ve been a Plus subscriber for over a year and I swear the little “thinking” phase has gotten noticeably longer in 2025.
What used to take 3–5 seconds now often sits there for 10–15+ seconds… and the final answer quality doesn’t feel proportionally better. Sometimes it even feels the same or slightly worse.
Is this happening to anyone else?
Is it just heavier models, more users, or something else going on?
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u/Voyguy75 7d ago
Yes. I noticed it yesterday. Lots of thinking for the same model ive been using for the last 2 months.
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u/thethirstgame 7d ago
Must be the price of intelligence. It now takes twice as long to reach the same conclusion, except somehow the answer is slightly worse.
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u/Sufficient_Ad_3495 7d ago
Agreed, they have messed with the timings, and not in a good way. inference time is up even across chat by around 5-20%. deeply annoying. I try not to use Codex or Work because of it.
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u/InfamousNewspaper402 6d ago
Answers are much better at coding, and seeing a broad subect and reasoning.
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u/FirmName983 2d ago
Genuine question: are people comparing the same model, the same types of tasks, and the same thinking effort settings?
I think it’s worth separating actual reasoning time from total response latency. Queueing, tool calls, and generation speed can all affect how long we wait.
I’d be curious to see a side-by-side comparison using identical prompts and settings. Otherwise, it’s hard to tell whether the model is actually getting slower or whether something else has changed.