ChatGPT has officially entered a new era—with the rollout of its in-chat image generation capabilities as part of the newly launched ChatGPT 4o model. For the first time, users can generate images directly inside a live conversation with ChatGPT, blurring the lines between design tool and dialogue assistant.
No need to switch tabs. No need to open a separate interface. You can describe what you want, iterate on it, refine it, and regenerate—all in the same thread.
This update marks a major leap not just for OpenAI, but for the way we interact with and create visual content. What was once a tool for answering questions is quickly becoming an end-to-end creative assistant—and the implications are massive for marketers, creatives, product designers, and just about anyone who works with visuals.
But to understand just how far we’ve come, we need to go back to where it all started—with a strange little AI model named DALL·E.
What is ‘AI Slop”
Before we get too excited about the future, it’s worth remembering where we came from—and that means talking about something the internet has aptly named ‘AI slop’.
“AI slop” refers to the flood of low-quality, obviously-AI-generated images that once dominated early output from image generation models. These images were often visually strange, confusing, or just plain wrong. A person might have seven fingers on one hand, or a coffee cup would seamlessly morph into someone’s shirt sleeve. Objects would float, faces would blur into walls, and simple requests like “a man holding a dog” would result in half-man, half-dog mutants.
The models struggled not just with realism, but with basic prompt comprehension. What users wanted and what they got were often wildly different things. You could spot an AI-generated image a mile away—and not in a good way. The results weren’t just weird—they were unusable. The term “slop” wasn’t an exaggeration; it was a reflection of how crude and unrefined these early outputs truly were.
But that was then. With the evolution of models like DALL·E 2 and 3—and now the introduction of ChatGPT 4o’s integrated image generation—those sloppy outputs are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
The new generation of tools is not only better at understanding prompts but far more capable of generating coherent, high-quality, and even photorealistic images. And that shift—from AI slop to visual sophistication—is one of the clearest signs of how fast this technology is evolving.
My Experience With ChatGPT 4o Image Generation
Because of the nature of my work, I’ve been using ChatGPT almost daily since the first time I tried it. I’ve ridden the wave through every major update—GPT-3, GPT-4, DALL·E 2, and 3. I’ve seen the leaps. I’ve seen the limitations. But after spending just a few hours testing out the image generation tools in ChatGPT 4o, I can say with confidence: this is the most jaw-dropping upgrade yet.
And I don’t say that lightly.
I’ve always leaned toward Peter Thiel’s view on AI—that it’s largely useless without a human in the loop. AI can process and analyze, sure, but it still needs a human to make sense of what it’s doing. That belief has always made me feel relatively secure about the value of creative work. Writing, especially—AI still can’t write like a person. Not really. Not yet.
But after using ChatGPT 4o’s image generation tools, I’m not so sure the same protection applies to graphic design.
This morning, I asked ChatGPT to generate different illustrated versions of myself—a Muppet version, a Simpsons-style version, an anime character, even a SpongeBob-style rendering. And I’ll be honest: I was stunned. These weren’t just rough sketches or blurry cartoon knockoffs. These were clean, detailed, professional-grade vector graphics—delivered in seconds.
The output? High-quality SVG files, sharp enough for commercial use, and exactly what I had in mind. No over-engineered prompt. No Photoshop wizardry. Just simple, natural English, and ChatGPT handled the rest.
The accuracy was freakish. Nothing lost in translation. No need for a “prompt engineer” or 20 iterations to get it right. This was plug-and-play visual creativity at a level I’ve never seen before—and I’m seriously starting to think graphic design might be the first major creative field to feel the heat.
How 4o is disrupting everything
It’s not just cartoon-style portraits and character sketches—what I’ve seen in the last few days goes far deeper than novelty.
I’ve watched people generate high-quality ad creative in seconds. I’ve seen them start with nothing more than a PNG of their product on a transparent background, add a single line of description—something like “place this shoe on a marble pedestal with dramatic shadows and backlighting”—and get back a professional-level product mockup that would normally take a graphic designer hours to produce.
And the craziest part? These weren’t random hacks or hyper-technical users. These were people using plain English, right inside the chat interface. No plugins. No software switch. Just ChatGPT 4o.
This seriously has the potential to disrupt entire industries.
If high-quality creative work can now be generated on demand with nothing more than a monthly ChatGPT subscription, what happens to the agencies? The boutique design studios? The freelancers who’ve built careers out of producing one-off visuals, illustrations, product renders, and promotional graphics?
I don’t say this to be alarmist—I say it because the implications are real. This isn’t a fun side tool anymore. It’s viable. And it’s fast. The turnaround time, the quality, the accessibility—it’s all there. What used to take creative professionals hours and cost clients thousands is now accessible to anyone with an idea and a browser.
Agencies will need to rethink their value proposition. Freelancers will need to lean even harder into what only humans can do—storytelling, branding, original thinking, and strategy. Because the execution? That’s quickly becoming automated.
ChatGPT 4o isn’t just a better chatbot. It’s a signal that the creative economy is about to enter a very different kind of conversation.
