Ph.D intelligence
OpenAI claims this more powerful o1-preview has performed "similarly to PhD students on challenging benchmark tasks in physics, chemistry, and biology." And that's key here. o1-preview is a generative model that might have the greatest application in academia, not for helping you write an engaging prom-posal.
One example given in a video accompanying the blog is gene sequencing. In it, a scientist notes that while humans can't keep track of everything in gene sequencing, an AI can. The scientist refers to the new model as "chat with reasoning" and shows how when she types in a question, there's a moment where o1-preview says "Thinking." The value of it is that it keeps her from rabbit-holing into the wrong part of gene theory.