davinci
davinci (OpenAI)
Yes — davinci is retired. OpenAI deprecated it on July 6, 2023 and shut it down on January 4, 2024; API requests to it now fail. The recommended replacement is davinci-002.
The largest GPT-3 base model, and the one the 2020 paper actually described. It had no instruction tuning at all — you steered it with few-shot examples, which is the technique the whole prompt-engineering field grew out of. Retired January 2024.
The facts
| Provider | OpenAI |
|---|---|
| Model id | davinci |
| Released | June 11, 2020 |
| Deprecated | July 6, 2023 |
| Shutdown | January 4, 2024 · 938 days ago |
| Status | Retired |
| Last verified | July 30, 2026 |
What to use instead
davinci-002 was the named replacement base model and is itself deprecated, shutting down September 2026 — after which OpenAI hosts no base models at all.
What parameters davinci-002 accepts on modelparams.dev
Change the id
In most cases the migration is one string. Check the parameter differences before you ship — newer models drop older sampling knobs more often than they add them.
- "model": "davinci"
+ "model": "davinci-002"
Where the migration path ends
The recommended successor has itself been replaced. Following the chain to a model that is still active today:
- davinci
- davinci-002 Deprecated
- gpt-5.4-mini Active
Frequently asked questions
- When did OpenAI davinci shut down?
- OpenAI davinci shut down on January 4, 2024. API requests to it fail from that date onward.
- What replaces OpenAI davinci?
- OpenAI recommends davinci-002 (`davinci-002`) as the replacement for OpenAI davinci. davinci-002 was the named replacement base model and is itself deprecated, shutting down September 2026 — after which OpenAI hosts no base models at all.
- Is OpenAI davinci still available?
- No. OpenAI davinci is retired and no longer served — it was shut down on January 4, 2024. Calls to it return an error.
- How do I migrate from OpenAI davinci to davinci-002?
- Swap the model id in your API call: replace "davinci" with "davinci-002". davinci-002 was the named replacement base model and is itself deprecated, shutting down September 2026 — after which OpenAI hosts no base models at all.
Sources
- OpenAI API deprecations · developers.openai.com · accessed July 30, 2026
Found something wrong? The data is one YAML file — edit it on GitHub.
This page, for machines
Drop the badge in a README so it turns red the day this model is retired:
[](https://modeldeprecations.dev/openai/davinci)