OpenAI has officially released the GPT-5.6 model family after a testing phase. The lineup includes three variants: the flagship model Sol, the everyday-focused Terra, and Luna as a particularly cost-efficient option. For you, that means you can pick between performance and price depending on the task, instead of always reaching for the most expensive model.
What the three models can do
According to OpenAI, Sol sets new benchmarks in areas like programming, knowledge work, IT security, and science. It works with fewer tokens than earlier generations, which is meant to deliver a better performance-to-cost ratio. For especially demanding tasks, there's also a new tier called Ultra that coordinates multiple agents in parallel to finish complex workflows faster.
On the so-called agentic last-exam tests, which model longer workflows across 55 fields, OpenAI says Sol scored 53.6 points. The company compared that result to Claude Fable 5, which it says scored 13.1 points lower on the test. For programming, OpenAI points to the Artificial Analysis Coding Agent Index, where Sol reaches a score of 80 at maximum reasoning depth while using less than half as many output tokens as comparable models. OpenAI also promises improvements for office applications like presentations, documents, and spreadsheets, particularly in reliably sticking to templates, layout, and typography.
Safety, availability, and pricing
For the areas of cybersecurity and biology, OpenAI says it has added extra safeguards. GPT-5.6 doesn't cross the internally defined critical threshold in either category. In cybersecurity, the model is said to be better suited to finding and fixing vulnerabilities than to independently carrying out full attacks on well-protected systems.
GPT-5.6 is available in ChatGPT, Codex, and through the OpenAI API, with a worldwide rollout expected to take place over 24 hours. Depending on your subscription, you get access to different model variants and reasoning depths. For API billing, prices per million tokens for Sol are 5 US dollars for input and 30 US dollars for output. Terra costs 2.50 and 15 dollars respectively, Luna 1 and 6 dollars.