gpt-5.4 & gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 incorrectly reports the knowledge cutoff as being 2024-06, citing the system prompt and refusing to “state reliably” the facts past this date.
Q: What is your knowledge cutoff date?
A: My knowledge cutoff is 2024-06.
Q: Hi, does your system prompt mention knowledge cutoff?
A: Yes. It says my knowledge cutoff is 2024-06.
GPT models usually have inaccurate knowledge of their own knowledge cuttoffs. I think I recall seeing OAI publish knowledge cuttoffs in the past, but not quite sure…
As far as gpt-5.4 goes, I can get non-web search news up until 2025-06.
The problem is the knowledge cutoff is embedded in the model system prompt (yes, there is an always on system prompt even for API requests independent from the developer system prompt) along with the current date. I have updated the original post to make this clear.
I suspect system prompts are not necessarily tied to models, model cut-off dates etc.
Always use a tool based environment to return source of truth and come from the angle that the LLM is providing natural language processing and reasoning only, not hard facts.
Hi @dmarkin
Thank you for reporting this and for pointing out the discrepancy. According to the documentation, gpt-5.4 has an Aug 31, 2025 knowledge cutoff.
I was able to reproduce the behavior on my side as well.
While it’s generally not ideal to ask the model about itself, I can see how this behavior may be influenced by the platform-provided system prompt.
I’m going to raise this with the team so we can take a closer look, and I’ll follow up here if I have any updates to share.
Is this what is happening?
Has already been mentioned here: Discrepancy in training data "training cut-off". Similarly, models do not understand their own version: Version updates according to GPT chat window