OpenAI releases GPT-5.2 AI model after code red memo targets Google's Gemini 3 threat

Reviewed byNidhi Govil

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OpenAI launched GPT-5.2 on Thursday in three versions—Instant, Thinking, and Pro—following CEO Sam Altman's internal code red directive earlier this month. The release responds to competitive pressure from Google's Gemini 3, which has been topping AI benchmarks and gaining market share. OpenAI claims GPT-5.2 delivers enhanced performance across writing, coding, and reasoning tasks, with 38 percent fewer hallucinations than its predecessor.

OpenAI Responds to Competitive Pressure from Google with GPT-5.2 Launch

OpenAI released GPT-5.2 on Thursday, unveiling its newest AI model family for ChatGPT in three distinct versions: Instant, Thinking, and Pro

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. The launch follows CEO Sam Altman's internal code red memo issued earlier in December, which redirected company resources toward improving ChatGPT in response to mounting competitive pressure from Google's Gemini 3 AI model

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. According to The Information, the code red directive called for delaying other initiatives, including advertising plans for ChatGPT, to focus on creating a better user experience

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Source: ET

Source: ET

Enhanced Performance Across Writing, Coding, and Reasoning Tasks

"We designed 5.2 to unlock even more economic value for people," said Fidji Simo, OpenAI's chief product officer, during a press briefing with journalists

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. The AI model demonstrates improved capabilities in creating spreadsheets, building presentations, writing code, perceiving images, understanding long context, using tools, and linking complex, multi-step projects

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. OpenAI positions GPT-5.2 as its strongest offering yet for professional knowledge work, with particular gains in coding, math, and science

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Source: Analytics Insight

Source: Analytics Insight

The three Instant, Thinking, and Pro versions serve distinct purposes within the model family. Instant handles faster tasks like writing and translation, while Thinking produces simulated reasoning text to tackle more complex work including coding and math

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. Pro represents the top-end model, designed to deliver maximum accuracy and reliability for difficult problems

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Benchmarks Show Competitive Edge Over Gemini 3

GPT-5.2 features a 400,000-token context window, allowing it to process hundreds of documents simultaneously, with a knowledge cutoff date of August 31, 2025

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. During the press briefing, OpenAI shared benchmarks comparing GPT-5.2 against Gemini 3 Pro and Claude Opus 4.5. GPT-5.2 Thinking scored 55.6 percent on SWE-Bench Pro, a software engineering benchmark, compared to 43.3 percent for Gemini 3 Pro and 52.0 percent for Claude Opus 4.5

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. On GPQA Diamond, a graduate-level science benchmark, GPT-5.2 achieved 92.4 percent versus Gemini 3 Pro's 91.9 percent

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Source: PYMNTS

Source: PYMNTS

OpenAI claims GPT-5.2 Thinking beats or ties human professionals on 70.9 percent of tasks in the GDPval benchmark, compared to 53.3 percent for Gemini 3 Pro

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. The company states the model completes these professional knowledge work tasks at more than 11 times the speed and less than 1 percent of the cost of human experts

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Reduced Hallucinations and API Pricing

Max Schwarzer, OpenAI's post-training lead, reported that GPT-5.2 Thinking generates responses with 38 percent fewer hallucinations than GPT-5.1, making the model substantially more reliable

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. This improvement addresses a critical concern for users deploying AI models in production environments where accuracy matters

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GPT-5.2 is rolling out to paid ChatGPT subscribers starting Thursday, with API access available to developers

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. Pricing in the API runs $1.75 per million input tokens for the standard model, representing a 40 percent increase over GPT-5.1

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. OpenAI says the older GPT-5.1 will remain available in ChatGPT for paid users for three months under a legacy models dropdown

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High Stakes in the AI Arms Race

The stakes for OpenAI are substantial. The company has made commitments totaling $1.4 trillion for AI infrastructure buildouts over the next several years, bets it made when it had a more obvious technology lead among AI companies

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. Google's Gemini app now has more than 650 million monthly active users, while OpenAI reports 800 million weekly active users for ChatGPT

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. The rapid growth of Gemini 3, which has been topping LMArena's leaderboard across most benchmarks, prompted the code red directive

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GPT-5.2 represents OpenAI's third major model release since August, maintaining a steady clip of updates

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. GPT-5 launched in August with a new routing system that toggles between instant-response and simulated reasoning modes, though users complained about responses that felt cold and clinical. November's GPT-5.1 update added eight preset personality options and focused on making the system more conversational

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Mixed Early Test Results and Strategic Questions

Early testing of GPT-5.2 reveals mixed results that raise questions about the model's deployment strategy. ZDNET's tests found the AI model performed well on mathematical pattern recognition and literary analysis but exhibited new behavioral quirks

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. In some cases, GPT-5.2 provided unusually brief responses and introduced a "go signal" requirement, asking users to confirm before proceeding with longer explanations

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. This new brevity may frustrate professional users who expect comprehensive answers without additional prompting.

Despite OpenAI's denial that GPT-5.2 was rushed to market, some employees reportedly requested the model release be pushed back to allow more time for improvements

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. Simo maintained during the briefing that the release "has been in the works for many, many months," though the timing of the launch clearly aligns with competitive pressures

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. Independent benchmark results from researchers outside OpenAI will take time to arrive, and objective measurement of AI performance remains a challenge in an industry where corporate sales pitches often outpace scientific validation

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