OpenAI releases GPT-Transcribe and GPT-Live-Transcribe, then deprecates Whisper API

2026-07-28★★★after cutoffmodel-releaseOpenAIconfidence: high

On 2026-07-28 OpenAI released gpt-transcribe (file transcription, $0.0045/min) and gpt-live-transcribe (low-latency streaming, $0.017/min), both accepting context, keyword and language hints. On 2026-08-26 it deprecated whisper-1 and the gpt-4o(-mini)-transcribe(-diarize) models, with shutdown on 2027-02-26, ending the API life of the model that popularised open speech recognition.

Key facts

gpt-transcribe: $0.0045/min, 25% cheaper than whisper-1 / gpt-4o-transcribe ($0.006/min)
Artificial Analysis WER 3.31% for gpt-transcribe, ~0.7 points better than gpt-4o-transcribe but behind ElevenLabs, Google and Mistral (The Decoder)
OpenAI-reported Common Voice (22 languages) WER: 40.37% whisper-1 vs 19.27% gpt-transcribe (press)
Deprecation announced 2026-08-26; shutdown 2027-02-26 for whisper-1, gpt-4o-transcribe, gpt-4o-mini-transcribe, gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize

What happened

OpenAI replaced its whole speech-to-text lineup with a file model and a streaming model under the new "GPT Transcribe" name, then scheduled Whisper's API retirement. The open-source Whisper weights remain available.

Why it matters

Speech-to-text became a price war (OpenAI $0.0045/min vs Google Gemini 3.5 Transcribe, launched a month later) in which OpenAI is no longer the accuracy leader on independent WER benchmarks.

Benchmark numbers are from secondary sources, not read on an OpenAI page.

Changelog

2026-09-29: created

Models

GPT-Live-Transcribe OpenAI · current
GPT-Transcribe OpenAI · current

Related events

2026-05-07OpenAI releases GPT-Realtime-2 (reasoning voice), GPT-Realtime-Translate and GPT-Realtime-Whisper ★★★

Sources (5)

id: 2026-07-28-openai-gpt-transcribe-whisper-deprecation · updated 2026-09-29 · open in the interactive timeline