The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) has demonstrated the importance of climate modeling for climate research and its usefulness for climate services. The latter has increased CMIP's operational burden, so much so that serving IPCC has become its animating force. Attempting to satisfy an operational mandate through a coordinated research project diminishes both the service and the research. Regaining the initiative will require CMIP to transition the quasi‐operational system it has developed to an operational setting. Doing so would allow CMIP to focus on developing an international scientific agenda to encourage and exploit advances in climate modeling. Key Points Continuing to develop the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) as a quasi‐operational system disguised as a research activity, serves neither science nor society The system of climate information provision being sustained by CMIP needs to be operationalized as a service Freeing CMIP from its operational burden will allow it to focus on the pressing need to strengthen climate science