I wrote my comment that way, based on my personal memories of the news cycle between gpt-4 and gpt-4o, and the claims raised by OpenAI about gpt-4o. The hype before 4o release was overwhelming, people have expected the same step up as between 3 and 4, and there were constant "leaks" from supposed insiders that gpt-5 is just at the horizon and will come out soon. And then they release 4o, which was a big standalone release, not some fine tuning like turbo or whatever else they made before.
Looking at the benchmarks it was also very expected in my opinion. Sure, the absolute results are/were sky high, but results relative to the previous gen were not exponential now, they were comparatively smaller than between 2 and 3, or 3 and 4. So I'm guessing that they have invested and worked for 2023-2024 on a brand new model, and branded it according to the model results.
Looking at the benchmarks it was also very expected in my opinion. Sure, the absolute results are/were sky high, but results relative to the previous gen were not exponential now, they were comparatively smaller than between 2 and 3, or 3 and 4. So I'm guessing that they have invested and worked for 2023-2024 on a brand new model, and branded it according to the model results.