OpenAI details what to expect from the three new models in its GPT-5.6 preview

Right now, the introduction of new AI models is more politicalized than ever, following the abrupt government pushback against Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5. Now that mess is only set to continue, as the White House sticks its nose all up in OpenAI’s business for the release of GPT-5.6. As we wait to see how all that will ultimately play out, OpenAI is now detailing exactly what we can expect from its new GPT-5.6 models.

We’re actually looking at a trio of models that make up this latest generation: Sol, Terra, and Luna, all arriving over the coming weeks.

GPT‑5.6 Sol represents the big guns; this is OpenAI’s new flagship model, optimized for performance across cybersecurity, biological sciences, and general coding tasks. Understandably, it outperforms GPT‑5.5 on many workflows, while also offering efficiency improvements that lead to lower token consumption. Users can eke even great performance out of it with new “max” and “ultra” modes that cause it to reason more deeply and leverage multiple agents, respectively.

Terra, meanwhile, is designed to be “just right” porridge of the three, with a balance of performance and speed. OpenAI says users can expect it to operate much like the GPT-5.5 we have now, but do so at less than half the expense.

Finally, Luna is the model designed to put efficiency above all else, and while it still delivers what OpenAI characterizes as “strong capability,” its pricing is over 50% lower than Terra’s.

As for the national security elephant in the room, OpenAI swears up and down that Sol, Terra, and Luna alike are all equipped with multiple levels of safeguards to strengthen them against being employed for nefarious uses. The company notes in particular how Sol has been tuned to be excellent at finding software vulnerabilities and developing fixes for them, while resisting efforts to craft full exploit chains, ready to be used by attackers. That’s a very nice-sounding sentiment, but we’ve also seen just how resourceful users have proved to be at finding ways around protections just like this.

OpenAI warns that during this initial GPT‑5.6 preview in particular, those safeguards might be erring on the side of caution, preventing users from performing legitimate tasks. The company expects to further fine-tune its approach here, so that’s a situation we hope to see become a bit less burdensome in time.

For starters, OpenAI is making the GPT-5.6 preview available to “trusted partners and organizations.” More general availability, including in ChatGPT and Codex, is set to arrive further down the line.