GPT

GPT is the name of the AI model series that OpenAI builds and releases.

Think of it like a shared brain that multiple companies can rent. Once a company licenses this brain, they embed it into their own product, and that product uses it to write text or generate code. Cursor, the code editor, lets users pick this brain from a menu inside its interface, and Microsoft licenses it to power its coding tool, Copilot.

What's interesting is that the companies renting this brain are often building their own brains at the same time. Cursor trains its own model called Composer, and Microsoft trains its own model called MAI, yet both still offer OpenAI's GPT alongside their in-house models. In other words, GPT isn't locked into a single company's product — it's more like a component that gets used across many different companies' offerings.

In the article, Cursor is described as letting users choose OpenAI's GPT alongside Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini. There's also a mention of Microsoft's AI organization licensing GPT to power Copilot.

A common point of confusion: GPT and ChatGPT are not the same thing. GPT is the name of the model itself, built by OpenAI, while ChatGPT is the name of the conversational service OpenAI released using that model. When GPT runs quietly inside other companies' products like Cursor or Copilot, it's the same GPT.

Find the model-selection menu in an AI code editor like Cursor or on the ChatGPT interface, and pick a GPT-series model. Try asking the same question and compare how the response style differs from models made by other companies, like Claude or Gemini — this helps you get a feel for how GPT is treated as just one option among several.