OpenAI's next reasoning model may skip "o2" name to avoid O2 trademark clash

O2? Can't do! OpenAI faces a naming challenge for its next reasoning model. According to two insiders, the company will likely skip using "o2" to avoid trademark conflicts with British telecommunications giant O2, jumping straight to "o3" instead. Several OpenAI executives have already started referring to the upcoming model as "o3" internally, according to The Information. The company is currently investing heavily in developing the o-series, its first "reasoning" models. To support this work, the company is developing a new large language model called "Orion" that will generate synthetic training data. Microsoft's Phi-4 model recently demonstrated the effectiveness of incorporating synthetic data in AI training, at least in achieving impressive benchmark results. Interestingly, Sébastien Bubeck, who helped create the Phi series at Microsoft, has since joined OpenAI's team.