In a swift turn of events, less than 24 hours after reports indicated OpenAI would delay its next model launch at the Trump administration's behest, the company has released GPT-5.6. On Friday, OpenAI unveiled a limited preview of its new GPT-5.6 model suite, featuring three distinct models: Sol, the flagship; Terra, a mid-tier offering designed for "high-volume work"; and Luna, positioned as a "fast and affordable" everyday model. OpenAI highlights their expertise in areas such as coding, cybersecurity, and biology, alongside their ability to maintain focus during complex, long-horizon agentic AI tasks.
The pricing structure for GPT-5.6 Sol is set at $5 input and $30 output per million tokens, making it nearly half the cost of Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5, which is priced at $10 input and $50 output. Terra is offered at half the cost of Sol, while Luna is even more economical, coming in at less than half the cost of Terra. Furthermore, OpenAI introduced two new modes for Sol: a "max" mode for enhanced reasoning capabilities and an "ultra" mode designed for leveraging sub-agents. This "ultra" mode draws parallels to OpenClaw, potentially indicating the influence of OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger's recent work at OpenAI.
Amidst heightened security concerns in Washington, D.C., OpenAI dedicated a significant portion of its announcement blog post to addressing safety protocols and the prevention of potential misuse. The company appeared to allude to the recent "jailbreaking travails" faced by its competitor, Anthropic, stating that "GPT‐5.6 is trained to refuse prohibited cyber assistance, including when users attempt to disguise their intent or jailbreak the model." OpenAI also clarified that its flagship model, Sol, "is better at helping people find and fix vulnerabilities than reliably carrying out end-to-end attacks," and confirmed that Sol does not exceed the cyber-critical threshold under OpenAI’s preparedness framework. It is worth noting, however, that OpenAI revised this framework in April, removing some previously studied areas.
OpenAI affirmed that Sol incorporates the company’s "most robust safety stack to date" and features "strengthened protections for higher-risk activity, sensitive cyber requests, and repeated misuse." The company disclosed a significant investment of "approximately 700,000 A100e GPU hours" into automated red-teaming efforts and engaged third-party testers, whose evaluations are slated to continue for an additional two weeks.
During the closely monitored preview period, overseen by the Trump administration, OpenAI has adopted a particularly cautious approach. The company acknowledged that "safeguards may occasionally intervene on legitimate work, particularly in dual-use areas where defensive and offensive activity can initially look similar. That is part of what the preview is designed to test." Earlier reports indicated that the Trump administration would approve customers for the preview on a case-by-case basis.
Despite the current stringent oversight, OpenAI anticipates general availability for the model suite in the coming weeks, driven by its commitment to "broad access." While the company collaborated with the U.S. government for this initial launch, it expressed hope that such a process would not become standard practice.
“We don’t believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default,” OpenAI stated. “It keeps the best tools from users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders, and global partners who need them. We are taking this short-term step because we believe it is the strongest path to broader availability in the coming weeks, while we work with the Administration to develop the cyber Executive Order framework and a repeatable process for future model releases.”
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