January 14, 2027. That's when OpenAI says several GPT-4o and GPT-4.1 model snapshots will shut down on its API, according to a notice posted on October 14.
If one of those models sits behind a customer-facing workflow at your firm, the question isn't whether the provider gave notice. It did. The question is whether anyone at your firm will see it in time to act.
What the providers publish
OpenAI's deprecations page lists several retirements announced between July and October 2026, covering audio, transcription and text models. It states minimum notice periods: at least six months for generally available models, at least three months for specialized variants, and much shorter notice for preview models.1
Anthropic's policy is at least 60 days' notice for publicly released models. On September 30, 2026, it announced that Claude Sonnet 4.5 will retire on November 30, 2026, on its own platforms. Its page adds that partner-operated platforms, Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud, set their own retirement schedules, so dates can differ.2
The same model can retire on different dates depending on where you buy it. An inventory that records only the model's name can't tell you which date applies. If you reach a model through a cloud marketplace, that platform's table, not the provider's, holds your date.
The fields that are missing
Model: [name, version]
Bought through: [provider API, cloud platform, embedded in a vendor's product]
Retirement date on that channel: [date, with the source link]
Minimum notice on that channel: [from the provider's policy]
Our time to revalidate a replacement: [weeks to test and approve]
Alert set for: [retirement date minus revalidation time]
Compare the fifth line with the fourth. If it takes your firm twelve weeks to test and approve a replacement and the channel promises sixty days' notice, you will always start late. Either shorten the revalidation or start it before the notice arrives. And record where the replacement will come from before you need it.
Models embedded in a vendor's product are the hardest case. The vendor gets the provider's notice. Do you get the vendor's? Put that in the contract: notice of the underlying model's retirement, and of the replacement, before it happens. Then treat the date like a contract renewal: owned, on a calendar and reviewed in advance.
This is different from a provider silently updating a model you approved. A retirement is announced and dated. The risk isn't surprise. It's that the date reaches an inbox nobody connects to the workflow it will break.
For a startup whose product rests on one model snapshot, this is a roadmap item, not an IT task. Put the date on the product calendar.
The provider published the date. The rest of the work is getting it to the person who has to act.
Related Reading
Read Five Substitutes for a Plan for what organizations actually rely on when a critical process stops.
