GPT-5.6: The Review

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This review of OpenAI's GPT-5.6 models (Sol, Terra, Luna) covers its strengths in speed, efficiency, and advanced reasoning, highlighting its performance on benchmarks like DeepSWE, ExploitBench, and BrowseComp. While praising its capabilities, the review also notes weaknesses such as excessive code generation and potential for 'context pollution'.

GPT-5.6 models, particularly Sol, offer significant improvements in performance, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness, setting new benchmarks across various tasks.

• GPT-5.5

  Sol outperforms GPT-5.5 on real-world tasks and offers significantly better output tokens at a lower cost.

• Claude Fable 5

  Sol eclipses Fable 5 in benchmarks by 13.1 points and is significantly more efficient.

• Claude Opus 4.8

  Luna outperforms Opus 4.8 at around one-sixteenth the cost.

• GPT-5.6 Performance

  GPT-5.6 models, particularly Sol, set a new standard for intelligence, efficiency, and performance across various tasks.

  • 7:50 Achieves state-of-the-art results across coding, knowledge work, cybersecurity, and science.
  • 8:07 Outperforms previous models with fewer tokens and at lower estimated cost.
  • 9:00 Sets new high scores on benchmarks like Agents' Last Exam and the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
  • 10:40 Achieves new state of the art on BrowseComp with 92.18% score at $12.17 per 1M tokens.
• Model Efficiency and Cost

  GPT-5.6 models offer surprising efficiency for their price, with Sol being particularly cost-effective for its performance.

  • Sol is described as "surprising efficient for price".
  • Terra is highlighted as a good option for budget-conscious users.
  • 7:05 Luna is the most cost-efficient model.
  • GPT-5.6 models run programs in-memory that coordinate tools and process intermediate results, making it Zero Data Retention (ZDR) compatible.
• GPT-5.6 Weaknesses

  Despite its strengths, GPT-5.6 has weaknesses, including writing excessive code and being overly "determined."

  • 14:59 Writes WAY too much code.
  • 15:14 Too determined, will break things.
  • 15:30 Not frontier at design.
  • 15:46 Doesn't know what it doesn't know.
  • 16:10 Can burn tokens without clear "stops".
• GPT-5.6 Safety

  OpenAI is taking a conservative approach to safety, implementing robust measures and extensive red teaming to strengthen the system against adaptive attacks.

  • 25:06 GPT-5.6 Sol cyber safeguards block ten times more potentially harmful activity than previous models.
  • 25:20 Measures create friction for benign use, provide options in ChatGPT and Codex to easily retry prompts on lower-capability models.
  • 26:10 Iterative deployment approach: starting conservatively and improving based on real-world use.
  • 26:50 Ran intensive safety evaluations, including red teaming, robust capability and safeguard testing, using 700,000 A100e GPU hours of black-box automated red teaming.
• Availability

  GPT-5.6 models (Sol, Terra, Luna) are available starting today across ChatGPT, Codex, and the OpenAI API, with gradual rollout over the next 24 hours.

  • 28:40 Chat: Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users access GPT-5.6 Sol through medium and higher effort settings.
  • 29:16 ChatGPT Work and Codex: Free and Go users access GPT-5.6 Terra, Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users can choose among GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna and set an effort level for each.
  • 30:03 API: Developers can access Sol, Terra, and Luna through the OpenAI API.

• 0:05 Introduction to GPT-5.6 models: Sol, Terra, and Luna.
• 6:43 Analysis of benchmark performance, including Agents' Last Exam and DeepSWE.
• 7:23 Sol sets a new standard for intelligence and efficiency, outperforming previous models with fewer tokens and lower cost.
• 10:40 BrowseComp benchmark results: Sol achieves 92.18% score at $12.17 per 1M tokens.
• 12:17 Cost comparison of models, showing Sol's higher cost but also its superior performance.
• 13:23 GPT-5.6 capabilities in coding, cybersecurity, and science research.
• 14:58 Weaknesses identified: excessive code generation, lack of clear stops, potential for "context pollution", and being "too determined".
• 18:30 Comparison with other models like Fable, showing strengths in specific areas.
• 22:12 The importance of prompting and understanding the models' limitations.
• 25:00 Overview of model sizes and pricing.
• 26:50 Discussion of safety evaluations and safeguards against harmful activity.
• 28:30 Availability: GPT-5.6 is available on ChatGPT, Codex, and OpenAI API.
• 35:20 Summary of strengths and weaknesses.