OpenAI limits GPT-5.6 rollout after government request, says restrictions shouldn't be norm

OpenAI limits GPT-5.6 rollout after government request, says restrictions shouldn't be the norm

OpenAI is limiting the release of its newest AI models to a "small group of trusted partners" at the behest of the U.S. government, the company said Friday. The next generation GPT-5.6 lineup includes Sol, its flagship model; Terra, a more balanced model for everyday use; and Luna, a faster, lower cost option. Although Sol is the company's most powerful mode, the Trump administration has restricted the release of all three. OpenAI said the preview is limited to partners "whose participation has been shared with the government." The administration's request comes as the US government puts new pressure on AI companies to restrict their most advanced systems. After Anthropic released its most powerful public model Fable 5, the administration ordered the company to remove access for any foreign national, prompting Anthropic to take the model down entirely. The incident has brought up questions of how much power the government should have over AI model releases. Dean Ball, a former White House AI advisor and soon-to-be OpenAI employee, says President Trump's recent executive order -- which asks certain AI companies to voluntarily submit their most advanced models for government review up to 30 days before release -- has created a de facto involuntary licensing regime for frontier AI, leading to heavy-handed restrictions. The problem compounds, Ball argues, when the government doesn't have clearly defined safety standards, which could lead to endless launch delays that might not only give a hand to China in the AI race, but also jeopardize the billions of dollars going to AI infrastructure buildouts. And while OpenAI did as the administration asked this time around, the AI firm made it clear it wasn't happy with the arrangement. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," reads a Friday blog post. "It keeps the best tools from users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders, and global partners who need them." OpenAI called the preview a "short-term step" that will put GPT-5.6 on the path to broader availability in the coming weeks, as the company works with the administration to develop a new executive order framework on cybersecurity, as well as a "repeatable process for future model releases." GPT-5.6 Sol specs OpenAI says GPT-5.6 Sol is its strongest model yet, with improved agentic capabilities in coding, biology and cybersecurity. Sol introduces a "max" reasoning effort mode and an "ultra" mode that uses coordinated subagents to solve highly complex tasks (just the sort of neat trick that sends your token usage skyrocketing). GPT-5.6 excels at several benchmarks, says OpenAI, including being slightly better at coding workflows than Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5, which the Trump administration also effectively banned this month. OpenAI says GPT-5.6 Sol is also competitive with Mythos preview, but uses a third of the output tokens. To assuage any fears of its powerful models being unsafe, OpenAI says Sol includes its most robust security stack yet. It is, OpenAI says, heavily hardened against adversarial attacks and intentionally optimized to favor defensive cybersecurity work over offensive exploits. In other words, it's designed to be hard to jailbreak, while prioritizing showing users how to defend against exploits, rather than how to hack into systems. OpenAI also says its safety guardrails are built directly into the core model's behavior, rather than relying on a separate filter on top of it. The firm is likely trying to avoid the trap that caught Anthropic with Fable 5. In the brief moments when Fable 5 was available, whenever the model's classifiers detected a high-risk topic -- like cybersecurity, biology, or chemistry -- it wouldn't just block the prompt; it would route the request to an older model. The whole over-cautious flow and invisible downrouting led to many false positives and user backlash. While the GPT-5.6 models are initially available only to a select group of partners, OpenAI plans to make them more broadly available to people using ChatGPT, Codex, and the API soon. GPT-5.6 comes in three sizes with tiered pricing: Sol costs $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens; Terra costs half that; and Luna costs $1 and $6, respectively. OpenAI says it has also improved prompt caching to make repeated prompts cheaper and more predictable.

OpenAI Has New AI Models. Here's Why You Can't Use Them

OpenAI is delaying the public release of its next generation of AI models, GPT-5.6, at the request of Trump's White House, the company confirmed on Friday. OpenAI said it would first share the models with a small set of customers, which will be pre-approved by the US government. It will then work with the administration to slowly expand access. OpenAI is not happy about this, according to a person familiar with the company's thinking, but believes the delay and government approval process is only temporary. In a blog post, the company said it hopes it will be able to make GPT-5.6 available to everyone in the coming weeks. OpenAI's plans to delay its next generation of AI models at the Trump administration's request was first reported by The Information. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," OpenAI wrote in its blog post. "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." Got a Tip?Are you a current or former OpenAI or US government employee who wants to talk about what's happening? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporter securely on Signal at mzeff.88. Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order that aimed to address the cybersecurity concerns of powerful new AI models. The order said the White House would create a "voluntary process" for AI labs to share their models with the government 30 days ahead of a broader release. The mandate included a carveout, saying the US government would not turn its voluntary process into a de-facto "licensing regime." But in its Friday briefing, OpenAI executives said no such voluntary framework exists yet. As a result, the frontier AI labs are in a very weird interim period, where working with the US government on your AI model launch doesn't seem all that voluntary. The White House is asking OpenAI to stagger the release of its AI models just two weeks after it sent an export control directive to Anthropic, which prompted the company to take its most advanced AI models offline for all customers. Anthropic's spat with the White House is still unresolved, and some of the company's own employees are still barred from using its most advanced AI models. The Trump Administration's request for OpenAI and Anthropic to limit availability on their most advanced AI models creates an uncertain environment for other US AI labs. Over the last two years, the Trump administration has sought to clear regulation and red tape that could hinder America's AI innovation, and potentially hurt the country's competitiveness with China. In recent months, however, the White House has grown increasingly concerned about the cybersecurity abilities of new AI models, and has scrambled to address the problem. OpenAI plans to broaden the set of customers it can share GPT-5.6 with next week, including some international partners. Executives for OpenAI said that it can't share details of how exactly the White House is approving these customers -- the company just sends the US government a list, and then gets feedback on it, the executives said. The White House didn't immediately respond to WIRED's request for comment. OpenAI says its GPT-5.6 AI models will come in three flavors: Sol, its most capable version of the model; Terra, a middle-tier version of the model; and Luna, a fast and affordable version. The company says GPT-5.6 Sol is its most capable model yet on benchmarks testing cybersecurity, biology, and agentic abilities. Alongside these new capabilities, OpenAI says it has a "layered safeguard stack," which aims to stop bad actors from using its AI model for cyberattacks, among other malicious behaviors.

The White House is asking OpenAI to slow roll the release of its new model over safety concerns

OpenAI's release of its newest model, GPT 5.6, reportedly won't be like its previous releases. Instead of distributing it to the public, the company plans to share it only with a select group of close partners because the Trump administration told it to, reports The Information. At a meeting this week, CEO Sam Altman reportedly told staff that the government would be "approving access customer by customer" during a preview period. Altman reportedly added that if the limited release goes well, OpenAI hopes to follow with a general, broader release a "couple of weeks later." In other words, the Trump administration appears to be pressuring OpenAI to do what Anthropic is already voluntarily doing: keeping its most powerful AI models under wraps. According to The Information, OpenAI's new model is not only being reviewed by the administration, but its staffers also "worked closely" with the government on the upcoming release. The agencies that reportedly asked for a limited release were the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The Trump administration -- which originally positioned itself as taking a "hands off" approach to AI -- has in recent months pushed for federal oversight of new models. Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order directing certain AI companies to voluntarily submit new models to the government for testing and evaluation before releasing them publicly. Earlier this year, Anthropic sparked no small amount of controversy when it announced that its new frontier cyber model, Claude Mythos, would only be released to a small coterie of partners through a program called Project Glasswing. Anthropic argued that its model was simply too powerful and could, in the wrong hands, cause more harm than good. Observers have since debated whether Anthropic's rhetoric is a mere marketing gimmick or a legitimate attempt to keep a powerful model from being misused. The answer may be somewhere in between. Cybercriminals have used automated tools for a very long time, but in the age of generative AI, they now have more digital ammunition than ever before. LLMs have proven adept at writing malware, and some can even execute entire ransomware attacks autonomously. The specific concern with frontier cyber tools like Mythos is that they are ostensibly capable of both identifying and exploiting software vulnerabilities at speeds that no human analyst could match. Since many software systems contain hidden bugs that act as entry points into enterprise networks, this obviously poses an obvious and significant problem for any organization running complex software infrastructure. That said, since these models remain closed to the public, it's difficult to tell just how much of a threat they really are.

OpenAI unveils GPT-5.6 amid US AI regulatory drama

Less than 24 hours after news broke that OpenAI would stagger its next model release at the request of the Trump administration, that model, GPT-5.6, is here. On Friday, the company unveiled the limited preview of its new GPT 5.6 model suite: Sol, the flagship; Terra, a medium-tier model for "high-volume work"; and Luna, a "fast and affordable" everyday model. OpenAI says it's especially skilled at coding, cybersecurity, and biology, as well as staying focused during long-horizon agentic AI tasks. Per million tokens, GPT-5.6 Sol is priced at $5 input / $30 output (nearly half the cost of Anthropic's Claude Fable 5, which is $10 input / $50 output). Terra is half the cost of Sol, and Luna is less than half the cost of Terra. The company also debuted two additional modes for Sol: a "max" mode for deeper reasoning and an "ultra" mode for leveraging sub-agents -- evoking OpenClaw, and perhaps a sign of OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger's work at OpenAI so far. Unsurprisingly amid a security panic in Washington, D.C., OpenAI dedicated the majority of its announcement blog post to safety and potential misuse. It appeared to reference the recent jailbreaking travails of its rival Anthropic, writing that "GPT‐5.6 is trained to refuse prohibited cyber assistance, including when users attempt to disguise their intent or jailbreak the model." It also said that flagship model Sol "is better at helping people find and fix vulnerabilities than reliably carrying out end-to-end attacks," and that Sol doesn't cross the cyber-critical threshold under OpenAI's preparedness framework -- though it should be noted that OpenAI recently revised its preparedness framework in April and removed some areas of previous study. The company said Sol has the company's "most robust safety stack to date" and that it "strengthened protections for higher-risk activity, sensitive cyber requests, and repeated misuse." OpenAI said it had dedicated "approximately 700,000 A100e GPU hours" to automated red-teaming and also worked with third-party testers, the latter of which will continue to test it for the next two weeks. OpenAI also seemed to be taking an extra-sensitive approach during the preview period, which is being closely monitored by the Trump administration. The company wrote 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." The report earlier this week said that the Trump administration will approve customers on a case-by-case basis during the preview period. OpenAI said the model suite should be generally available in the coming weeks because the company believes in "broad access," and that the company cooperated with the US government ahead of this launch, but that it hopefully wouldn't be the norm. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," the company wrote. "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."

OpenAI's ChatGPT-5.6 gets the same banhammer treatment as Anthropic's Mythos from the federal government -- source says that Washington cautioned OpenAI against releasing the model without receiving approval

The U.S. government wants to ensure that its latest, most advanced AI tools can't be used against it. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said during a staff Q&A meeting that its latest model, GPT-5.6, is available in limited preview to only a small group of customers handpicked by the U.S. government. According to The Information, the federal government, specifically the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, asked the AI tech company to stagger the release of its latest model. While Altman did not mention how long the delay for the general release of GPT-5.6 will be, he said in a memo that he hoped it would happen in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, the U.S. government is granting access to the latest model on a case-by-case basis only. Despite OpenAI's agreement to the delay, sources say that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called Altman to warn him against releasing GPT-5.6 to the public without prior approval from government agencies. "We've made clear to the U.S. government that this is not our preferred long-term model and will work with them and others in industry to achieve a more sustainable approach for future releases," the OpenAI chief said in the Thursday memo. This wasn't the first time that an American AI lab has delayed the release of its frontier model due to security concerns. Back in early April, Anthropic released Claude Mythos Preview to select key institutions first, allowing them to prepare for the general release of the powerful AI model. It eventually built Fable 5, a watered-down version of Mythos with built-in safeguards to prevent misuse, and released it in June 2026. However, the U.S. government disagreed with the company's belief that it was a safer model and put both Fable 5 and Mythos on an export control list just three days after it dropped. This meant that foreign nationals, even those who work for Anthropic, are banned from accessing the model. Since the company cannot enforce compliance, it just decided to pull the model completely from the market. The increasing advancement of AI models has the White House scrambling to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. This is especially true as it continues to compete with rival China for supremacy. Although the U.S. has taken steps like export controls to slow Beijing's progress, many industry leaders believe that it's only a matter of time before the East Asian country catches up. So, even though the Trump administration initially promised that it would reduce regulations to help AI advance much more quickly in the country, President Donald Trump has changed his tune and signed an executive order earlier this month that asks U.S. AI labs to give the government access to their latest models 30 days before it gets a general release. However, this move has got some industry experts concerned. "...this escalation of government intervention is nothing to celebrate. It is horrible for the broader AI ecosystem," Head of AI Policy and think tank Abundance Institute and former FTC Chief Technologist Neil Chilson said in their blog. "Continued arbitrary, unexplained deployment of export control authority will make companies slow-walk new models, depriving the public of powerful new tools. Every AI model, like all software before it, will have vulnerabilities that require patching. The US government should not hang a Sword of Damocles over every lab's head, with no indication when it might drop or why." Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.

OpenAI defers public rollout of GPT‑5.6 as US seeks early access to frontier AI models

June 26 (Reuters) - OpenAI said on Friday it was delaying a full public launch of GPT‑5.6 at the U.S. government's request, limiting the AI model's initial access to a small group of vetted partners whose details were shared with the authorities. The decision underscores growing concern in Washington over the national security risks posed by powerful AI systems, with policymakers pressing companies to put guardrails around them. By securing early access to frontier models, U.S. officials are aiming to identify threats ranging from cyberattacks to military misuse before the tools are widely deployed. OpenAI ⁠said in a blog post that the limited release was a temporary step as it works with Washington on a broader framework for future launches. The ChatGPT maker presented its plans and the models' capabilities to the government prior to the launch, it added. President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month establishing a voluntary framework for AI developers to offer "covered frontier models" to the U.S. government for up to 30 days before releasing them to trusted partners. "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," OpenAI said. The company said it would continue rigorous testing ⁠and close coordination with its partners as it prepares for a wider release, but cautioned that this level of government access and oversight should not become a permanent standard. It did ⁠not disclose the names of its partners. OpenAI, however, expressed concern that such a process would restrict access to advanced AI tools for users including developers, businesses, cybersecurity professionals ⁠and international partners who could benefit from them. At the center of the new lineup is GPT‑5.6 Sol, the company's most advanced model yet, alongside mid-tier Terra and lower-cost Luna. Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

OpenAI releases GPT-5.6 to select users vetted by US government

OpenAI has released its latest models to a select number of users as requested by the US government, amid fears over how bad actors could use the powerful capabilities of new AI systems to exploit global security. The San Francisco-based company announced a "limited preview" of a series of models, GPT-5.6: Sol, Terra and Luna, on Friday. OpenAI said Sol, the flagship model of the series, was the most advanced in cyber security. The limited release comes as rival Anthropic was forced to remove its latest model, Fable, from general access, following an export-control directive from the Trump administration two weeks ago. Fable was a safeguarded version of its much-hyped Mythos model, which offers advanced cyber security capabilities. However, the government demanded the model be taken down, following a reported security flaw. OpenAI previewed its GPT-5.6 series to the government, which requested a limited distribution. Only a small group of government-approved customers have been granted access to the model, and its rollout would expand in the coming weeks, the company said. OpenAI did not specify who was given access. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," it added. "It keeps the best tools from users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders and global partners who need them." OpenAI said it had taken this "short-term step" while it works with the administration to develop formal processes for future model releases. President Donald Trump signed an executive order this month to develop a voluntary framework to ensure new models are safe before release, specifically for cyber security applications. Mythos's launch in April triggered global concern over AI systems' ability to detect and exploit cyber vulnerabilities, including in critical infrastructure. The emergence of similar systems from Anthropic competitors has sent shockwaves through the security industry. Although AI has proven effective in detecting software vulnerabilities at a rate and scale beyond humans, it has also shown that it is adept at developing attacks on security infrastructure. Governments and companies fear that hackers, including those from foreign adversaries, could misuse the products. OpenAI said Sol has "strengthened protections" for "higher risk activities, sensitive cyber requests and repeated misuse". "GPT-5.6 Sol is better at helping people find and fix vulnerabilities than reliably carrying out end-to-end attacks," it added. "As these capabilities continue to advance, our priority is to make sure they reach and benefit defenders, who can use these tools to find weaknesses, develop patches and strengthen systems more broadly." OpenAI said it used "layered safeguards", including training protections in the model, real-time checks on models' responses, account reviews and continued testing. It added that it applied more computing power than ever towards safety testing to detect so-called jailbreaks -- or ways to bypass safeguards. GPT‐5.6 is trained to refuse prohibited cyber actions, including when users attempt to disguise their intent or jailbreak the model. Beyond cyber security applications, OpenAI said the 5.6 series was its most advanced for scientific use, coding and goal-oriented tasks, adding that it is more efficient than previous models.

US tells OpenAI to restrict access to its most powerful AI model

The Trump administration is getting twitchy about the power of the new models. US authorities are getting decidedly twitchy about frontier AI models. Just a couple of weeks after ordering Anthropic to prevent foreign companies from getting hold of its latest release, Mythos/Fable 5, it's been putting the squeeze on another AI company.. Now, the Trump administration is asking OpenAI to hold back on the general release of GPT-5.6, according to a report from Bloomberg. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly told employees that the government is asking that the model be released only to a short list of trusted partners, initially 20, before being more widely disseminated.

OpenAI Previews GPT-5.6 Sol With Restricted Access and Stronger Cyber Safeguards

OpenAI on Friday released three versions of GPT-5.6, called Sol, Terra, and Luna, as a limited preview to a small number of companies as part of an ongoing engagement with the U.S. government. While Sol is the latest flagship model and the most powerful, Terra strikes a balance between efficiency and power, and Luna is fine-tuned for speed and affordability. "GPT‑5.6 Sol launches with our most robust safety stack to date. We strengthened protections for higher-risk activity, sensitive cyber requests, and repeated misuse, and spent multiple weeks finding weaknesses, pressure-testing our system, and hardening it against real-world attacks," OpenAI said. The model has also been touted as the "most capable model yet" for cybersecurity, making it much more suitable for vulnerability research and exploitation. On ExploitBench , GPT‑5.6 Sol is competitive with Anthropic Mythos Preview using only about one-third of the output tokens, OpenAI noted. The goal, it added, is to enable access to legitimate work such as code review, vulnerability research, patch development, debugging, security education, and defensive testing, while enforcing strong guardrails that block offensive activity and swiftly remediating newly discovered jailbreaks. This includes adversarial attempts to jailbreak the model and refuse what it describes as "prohibited cyber assistance." "As these capabilities continue to advance, our priority is to make sure they reach and benefit defenders, who can use these tools to find weaknesses, develop patches, and strengthen systems more broadly," the artificial intelligence (AI) company explained. That said, OpenAI is also warning that there may be scenarios during the preview phase where users may encounter safeguards that block or refuse legitimate requests, or have their requests paused for additional review, owing to the "dual-use" nature of the technology. According to OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Preview System Card, although the model is more adept at finding vulnerabilities in code and developing exploits, the capabilities do not extend to carrying out autonomous, end-to-end attacks against hardened targets or weaponizing those cyber vulnerabilities in real attacks. "Separate evaluations examined misaligned behavior in agentic coding tasks and found GPT-5.6 shows a greater tendency than GPT-5.5 to go beyond the user's intent, including by taking or attempting actions that the user had not asked for, though absolute rates remain low," it pointed out. An evaluation of GPT-5.6 Sol against widely deployed hardened software projects using VulnLMP, which is OpenAI's internal framework designed to test end-to-end exploit chain development against real-world targets, has found the model to produce credible memory safety leads, some of which could lead to disclosure, mutation, or control flow corruption. "This suggests that substantial parts of real world vulnerability research are becoming increasingly automatable when models are paired with tool use, build systems, and verification infrastructure," the tech upstart said. OpenAI intends to make GPT‑5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna generally available in the coming weeks, and it previewed the model capabilities to the U.S. government. It's also launching a limited preview for a small group of trusted partners whose participation has been approved by the government before a broader launch. Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on AI and cybersecurity, calling for the creation of a framework that grants the federal government the ability to evaluate AI models' capabilities and determine which qualify as "covered frontier models," a designation for AI systems with advanced cyber capabilities. The staggered release comes days after the company released an improved version of its GPT‑5.5‑Cyber model to trusted defenders as part of the Daybreak initiative and launched a new project called Patch the Planet in collaboration with Trail of Bits to help secure open-source projects. It also follows the U.S. government's decision to permit Anthropic to release its Mythos AI model to a group of about 100 trusted companies and federal government agencies that "operate and defend critical infrastructure," more than two weeks after the powerful cybersecurity-focused models were pulled from the market. "We're restoring access for these organizations quickly, and we're continuing to work with the government to expand access to Mythos 5 and make Fable 5 available for general use again," Anthropic said in a statement posted on X.

OpenAI will delay GPT-5.6 after Trump administration request

The Trump administration, apprehensive of potential security issues, has reportedly asked OpenAI to stagger the release of its next big-ticket model, GPT-5.6. The Information reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees Wednesday in a company Q&A that it would release GPT-5.6 in limited preview form -- granting access only to a small group of enterprise customers -- in compliance with a request from the federal government. During that preview period, the Trump administration itself would reportedly approve access for customers on a case-by-case basis. It's a more favorable deal than the Trump administration gave OpenAI rival Anthropic, which earlier this month received an ultimatum requiring it to suspend access to its Mythos 5 and Fable 5, models. The administration issued an export control directive that prohibited "foreign nationals" from accessing the technology (including any of Anthropic's own employees who were not US citizens). The seemingly heavy-handed approach to AI regulation, after promises from the Trump administration that it would take a "speed wins" approach to the technology and encourage an American AI exports program, raised alarm bells across the tech industry. Now, some of those concerns seem to be coming to pass -- and in a decidedly uneven way, depending on the company.

OpenAI launches a limited preview of GPT-5.6 for a 'small group of trusted partners' - Engadget

The model's three variants will be available more broadly in the coming weeks. OpenAI has started previewing its GPT‑5.6 series, which will be available in three versions, to a limited number of trusted partners. The company says the variant Sol is its strongest model yet, while Terra is for everyday use and has a similar performance to GPT‑5.5 despite being twice as cheap. Luna, the last variant, is the company's lowest cost model. OpenAI plans to give them a broad release sometime in the coming weeks. The company gave the US government a preview of GPT‑5.6 and its capabilities before today. It's also by the administration's request that it is previewing the model to a small group of trusted partners "whose participation has been shared" with the government. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," OpenAI wrote in its announcement. It said it's taking the "short-term step," for now, because it ensures it can release its latest model series to the public soon. President Trump signed an AI cybersecurity order earlier this month, which asks companies to present their most powerful models for voluntary government review 30 days before making them publicly available. According to a recent report by The New York Times, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI and Microsoft have been giving the government early access to their latest models even before Trump signed the order. Meta was the only holdout, and the US government has reportedly been urging it to submit its AI models for evaluation. GPT‑5.6 introduces a "max" reasoning effort, which gives Sol more time to reason deeply. Sol is also OpenAI's most capable model for cybersecurity and is the best option to help users find and fix vulnerabilities. OpenAI says Sol comes with strengthened protections for high-risk activities and sensitive requests. It also says that the company had spent several weeks finding its weaknesses and fortifying it against real-world attacks. The company put safeguards on all the variants, however, to make sure they hold up to real adversarial pressure. In addition, OpenAI trained GPT-5.6 to refuse "prohibited cyber assistance," including attempts at jailbreaking the model. It spent 700,000 GPU hours to find universal jailbreaks to develop measures against them, and it pledges to implement a "rapid-response process to reproduce, assess, prioritize, and remediate newly discovered jailbreaks." OpenAI's focus on jailbreak prevention likely stems from what happened to Anthropic. A couple of weeks ago, Anthropic suspended all access to its Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models after a directive from the government. While the company didn't say it outright, Amazon and other companies had reportedly notified authorities that its models could be jailbroken and used for malicious purposes. It has started lifting its access block, though, since US government has just given Anthropic permission to redeploy Mythos to a select group of organizations. The company has priced GPT‑5.6 Sol at $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output, much less than what Fable cost when it was still available. ($10 for input and $50 for output for the same amount of tokens.) Terra costs $2.50 for input and $15 for output, while Luna costs $1 for input and $6 for output.

OpenAI limits new AI models to 'trusted partners' at request of U.S. government

OpenAI on Friday announced three new artificial intelligence models and said it's complying with the U.S. government's request to initially limit the rollout to a "small group of trusted partners." The company said in a blog post that it "believes in broad access" and is working to make the models -- GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna -- generally available in the coming weeks. OpenAI said it previewed the models' capabilities and shared its plans with the government ahead of Friday's launch. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," OpenAI said. "It keeps the best tools from users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders, and global partners who need them." OpenAI didn't disclose the names of partners that can use its new models. The announcement comes two weeks after rival Anthropic announced it had to disable access to two of its latest models in order to comply with an export control directive from the Trump administration. Anthropic is in active negotiations with officials in Washington, D.C., but has not said when it expects its the models to come back online. The Trump Administration has taken a noticeably more hands-on approach to AI regulation since President Donald Trump signed an AI executive order earlier this month. The order, which was thin on specific details, asked AI developers to voluntarily allow the government to assess model capabilities ahead of a full release. OpenAI said it's working with the Trump administration to help establish a framework for such assessments and to develop a "repeatable process for future model releases." "We are taking this short-term step because we believe it is the strongest path to broader availability in the coming weeks," OpenAI said. GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna are named according to their capability tiers. OpenAI said Sol is its strongest offering yet. The model shows improvements across coding and biology, and OpenAI said it's the company's most capable model for cybersecurity. The company said it is better at helping users fix vulnerabilities than it is at carrying out end-to-end attacks, and it still doesn't cross into OpenAI's "critical" cybersecurity risk threshold, which is defined as bringing "unprecedented new pathways to severe harm."

OpenAI limits its newest ChatGPT product to Trump-approved customers during cybersecurity review

ChatGPT maker OpenAI said Friday it is restricting the release of its new artificial intelligence model at the request of President Donald Trump's administration, the latest in an unprecedented government vetting of AI products that could pose cybersecurity risks. OpenAI said its new AI product, called GPT-5.6 Sol, would only be available for now to a "small group of trusted partners" approved by the Trump administration. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," OpenAI said in a statement. The company said it viewed the testing period as a temporary step on the "path to broader availability in the coming weeks." OpenAI's staggered release of a powerful new AI system follows actions the government took earlier this month against OpenAI rival Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot. Anthropic took offline two new AI models, known as Fable 5 and Mythos 5, just days after publicly releasing them to comply with a Trump directive blocking their use by foreign nationals. Officials have grown increasingly concerned since Anthropic warned earlier this year that its Mythos model was adept at finding flaws in software in a way that could be weaponized by malicious hackers and threaten critical computer networks around the world. Trump earlier in June signed an executive order on AI oversight that established a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to 30 days before their public release. The order described participation by AI developers as voluntary but the framework has not yet been fully developed. OpenAI said its new Sol model "is better at helping people find and fix vulnerabilities" than it is at carrying out cyberattacks and does not cross the company's own risk threshold. But it acknowledged there could be unforeseen risks especially if its model is combined with other tools. "That uncertainty, along with the model's broader step change in capabilities, is why we are pairing the model's increased capabilities with stronger safeguards and a phased release," the company said Friday.

OpenAI releases GPT-5.6 Sol to 20 government-approved partners in restricted preview

OpenAI released Sol, its most powerful model, to about 20 government-approved partners under Trump's AI order. OpenAI has released GPT-5.6 Sol, its most powerful model, to roughly 20 partners whose names were individually approved by the US government. The release is the first time an American AI company has launched a frontier model under a government-managed access list, a step beyond the voluntary pre-release review framework Trump's AI executive order established on June 2. Sol is the most capable model in a new three-tier series that also includes Terra, a mid-range option, and Luna, which is optimized for speed and cost. OpenAI described Sol as excelling at coding, biology, and cybersecurity, and introduced a new "max reasoning effort" mode that gives the model extended time to work through complex problems. The company plans to add an "ultra" mode that splits tasks among multiple sub-agents. The limited preview follows a direct request from the Trump administration to stagger the release, with the government approving access customer by customer during the preview period, according to Bloomberg. OpenAI said in a blog post that it does not believe "this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," but agreed to participate. The arrangement is the first practical test of the executive order Trump signed earlier this month, which asks AI companies to voluntarily give the government up to 30 days of pre-release access to models deemed to have advanced cyber capabilities. The order explicitly rejects mandatory licensing, but the Anthropic precedent gave it teeth. Two weeks ago, Washington ordered Anthropic to shut down Fable 5 and Mythos 5 after a reported jailbreak, the first time the government forced a commercial AI model offline. OpenAI's decision to cooperate contrasts with Anthropic's experience. Anthropic complied with the shutdown order but publicly called the action disproportionate, warning it would halt all frontier model deployments if applied across the industry. OpenAI appears to be taking the opposite approach, framing voluntary compliance as a way to avoid a more coercive outcome while preserving its ability to push back on the principle. Sol is also available through Amazon Bedrock, making it the first model in the new series accessible on a competing cloud platform. OpenAI said it plans to make all three tiers generally available in the coming weeks, though it has not set a public date. The broader question is whether government-gated releases become the template for every frontier model that follows. OpenAI clearly wants to prevent that, and said so publicly. But with Anthropic's models still offline and the executive order's voluntary framework already producing mandatory-looking outcomes, the line between cooperation and compliance is getting harder to draw.

The Government Boot Is Coming Down on AI

OpenAI is reportedly postponing the general release of its latest AI model, GPT-5.6, to comply with a government "request." Instead, the company will gradually roll out access to its latest model, starting with a limited preview for a small group of early testers, according to a Thursday report from The Information. The request came from the Office of National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, headed by Michael Kratsios. It followed weeks-long deliberations between OpenAI and federal officials over how GPT-5.6 would be released, according to The Information. The company reportedly shared its plan for a staggered release earlier this week. Then, CEO Sam Altman received a call from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick advising against even that tentative launch before other government agencies were able to sign off on it. To comply, OpenAI has opted to essentially give the Trump administration control over who can use the new model and when they'll be able to use it. Altman reportedly told staff in a memo on Thursday that the government would be approving access to GPT-5.6 "customer by customer" during the staggered rollout for GPT-5.6. "We've made clear to the U.S. government that this is not our preferred long term model, and will work with them and others in industry to achieve a more sustainable approach for future releases," Altman added in the memo. The New York Times also reported on Thursday that OpenAI is considering holding off on its highly anticipated IPO until next year. That's ostensibly due mainly to market volatility and the shakiness of rival SpaceX's own stock market debut, but one has to suspect that the industry's relationship with an unpredictable and often vindictive government is also contributing to the cold feet. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A new normal? As far as new product releases go, the staggered and federally monitored rollout for GPT-5.6 is a highly unusual, bureaucratically labyrinthine process. But it could become business as usual for the American AI industry under Trump. As of Friday morning, Anthropic -- OpenAI's biggest competitor and the most valuable startup in the world -- is still in talks with federal officials to lift the ban on its newest and most powerful models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5. The company took those models offline after receiving a letter from Lutnick earlier this month, which said it needed a federal license before "foreign persons" inside and outside the U.S., including Anthropic's own employees, could use the AI systems. Lutnick cited national security concerns and invoked U.S. export law to enforce an immediate shutdown -- a legally dubious move, according to some experts. Federal officials had previously learned from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy that the almost comically strong security guardrails around Fable (which, unlike Mythos 5, had been released to the public ) could allegedly be bypassed. Cybersecurity experts, however, have said the concerns were overblown and that the model had simply been identifying security vulnerabilities in a controlled environment, a vital use case for AI in cybersecurity. But there are plenty of reasons to suspect that the federal action against Anthropic has nothing (or at least very little) to do with safety. The company was already in the government's bad graces after it refused to cooperate with the Pentagon earlier this year to use its AI systems in surveillance of U.S. citizens or autonomous weapons systems. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth later designated Anthropic a national supply chain risk, the first time that label has ever been applied to an American company. Anthropic has sued the Pentagon to get the label removed. Mixed messages Whatever the government's motivations for forcing Anthropic to take its most powerful models offline, it's a remarkably hands-on approach for a president who not so long ago seemed firmly committed to a hands-off, laissez-faire stance towards AI. Trump began his second term intent on dismantling the burgeoning regulatory framework being built during the Biden administration, which included a requirement that AI companies building advanced models provide reports to the government outlining the results of their safety tests. Such bureaucratic red tape, Trump argued, would slow the American AI industry down at a time when it needed to sprint forward to maintain its lead over China's own AI efforts. Trump appeared to reverse course earlier this month when he signed an executive order asking AI companies to voluntarily give the federal government access to new models for a 30-day prerelease review period. The move was likely driven in part by concerns surrounding Anthropic's Mythos, which the company unveiled in April but declined to release publicly due to cybersecurity concerns. Throughout the entire boondoggle, first with Anthropic and now with OpenAI, the Trump administration has maintained that its interventions in the actions of privately held companies are purely in the interests of national security. Citing an anonymous source close to deliberations between the White House and OpenAI, Axios reported on Thursday that the request to stagger the release of GPT-5.6 was made because the model was found to have "Mythos-like" abilities, not because the government was trying to put the AI industry under its thumb. Capricious government intervention, however, will almost certainly cause confusion and hesitancy among AI developers who fear that by releasing a new model, they may cross an ill-defined red line and thereby invoke the Trumpian wrath. Meanwhile, as cybersecurity experts were quick to point out following the Fable/Mythos ban, rival labs in China will be able to seize upon the disorder by pushing ahead with their own AI development, while labs in the U.S. get bogged down trying to figure out what is, and what isn't, allowed from them.

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

Terra and Luna are balanced for efficiency and reduced cost of operation. 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.

U.S. government will decide who gets to use latest upgrade to ChatGPT

OpenAI made clear it is concerned about increased government oversight. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters) SAN FRANCISCO -- The federal government will vet companies that want to access the latest technology developed by ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, in a major expansion of the Trump administration's regulation of Silicon Valley. OpenAI said in a Friday blog post announcing its latest artificial intelligence model, GPT-5.6, or Sol, that the government would initially approve who gets access to the new release while AI companies and the administration work out a longer-term plan for regulation on the sector. The company made clear it is wary of more federal oversight. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default. It keeps the best tools from users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders, and global partners who need them," the blog post said. "We are taking this short-term step because we believe it is the strongest path to broader availability in the coming weeks." OpenAI said that Sol was its most powerful AI model yet and showed improvements in coding and cybersecurity tasks. (The Washington Post has a content partnership with OpenAI.) Only companies approved by the government will get access. There is no process for individual users to get access to the new model. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Donald Trump returned to office last year promising to give tech companies more freedom and with vocal backing from tech executives and investors who had complained President Joe Biden was too restrictive of AI development. More recently the administration has become more hands-on with AI companies. After Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, developed an AI model capable of finding vulnerabilities in critical software, the administration worked with the company to approve which companies and nations can access the technology. Earlier this month the Trump administration placed export controls on some of Anthropic's AI models, after officials learned it provided access to a South Korean telecommunications company suspected of having ties to China, The Post previously reported. "In a matter of weeks, U.S. federal AI policy has gone from implausibly libertarian to increasingly draconian and opaque," Dean Ball, a former Trump AI adviser, wrote in a social media post Friday. Ball has said he will join OpenAI next month to work on policy. This is a developing story and will be updated.

GPT-5.6 is here with better security and coding -- so why can't you use it yet?

OpenAI has unveiled GPT-5.6, a new set of large language models (LLMs) that promise large strides forward in biology, coding, and security. However, it's limiting initial access to a handful of customers -- reportedly at the U.S. government's request. The new LLM range centers around the "flagship" model, GPT-5.6 Sol. It's billed as "competitive" with Anthropic's Mythos Preview cybersecurity tool when discovering vulnerabilities, but uses roughly a third of the output tokens. There are layered safeguards to prevent abuses by hackers, such as checks for model jailbreaks and malicious output, and OpenAI warns that Sol might block suspicious requests even if they're well-intentioned. ChatGPT+ What's included? Unlimited conversations, faster response speed, priority access, and more Brand ChatGPT Try for Free Expand Collapse The company also touts improvements in output, latency, and cost for biology-related tasks like genomics, and coding scores better than Anthropic's Mythos 5. You might want to use Sol if you're a biologist or a dedicated vibe coder. The other GPT-5.6 models, Terra and Luna, are built for the cost-conscious. Terra is said to be comparable to GPT-5.5 while costing half as much to use, while Luna delivers functionality at the "lowest cost." When ready for wider use, GPT-5.6 Sol will cost $5 per input and $30 per output. Terra drops those costs to $2.50 per input and $15 per output, while Luna is just $1 per input and $5 per output. At the moment, however, OpenAI is only making GPT-5.6 models through its API and Codex for a "select group" of trusted companies and organizations. Broader availability through ChatGPT, the API, and Codex is coming sometime "soon." Why can't I use GPT-5.6 yet? The White House might be worried OpenAI characterizes the GPT-5.6 debut as a preview, and says it's using the limited release to determine whether the safeguards are strong enough to curb abuse without interfering with legitimate work. Feedback will reportedly help how the models understand context, minimize arbitrary blocks, and otherwise build a "smoother experience." However, the company might not have had much choice. Sources speaking to The Information claim the U.S. government's Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) and Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) "worked closely" with OpenAI, asking for a restricted initial release. Company CEO Sam Altman reportedly told staff federal officials would approve use "customer by customer" at first. I'm not a programmer -- but here's why I prefer Codex over ChatGPT Despite its name, Codex isn't just for coders and programmers -- anyone can and should use it. Posts 1 By Dibakar Ghosh The strategy would mirror that of Anthropic's Project Glasswing, which limited early Mythos access over fears it was too powerful. Hackers could theoretically use it to find and exploit security flaws before software developers can patch them. However, Glasswing was a voluntary program where OpenAI was told to stagger its rollout. Deals Save on AI software and subscription deals for devs Unlock discounts on AI software, subscriptions, and developer tools -- score savings on cloud compute credits, coding platforms, cybersecurity suites, genomics and biology toolkits, plus training and support offers. Browse deals to cut costs while building and deploying AI projects. Deals Explore Software, AI & Subscriptions Deals The President signed an executive order on June 2 that called on AI developers to voluntarily submit models for government review (lasting up to 30 days) before a public release. The move is meant to spot potential problems with security, intellectual property, and confidentiality. While the White House says this doesn't amount to "mandatory" licensing or permits, there's a clear motivation to participate as it amounts to a government endorsement.

OpenAI launches GPT-5.6 but restricts rollout after US request

OpenAI has introduced GPT-5.6, a new family of large language models led by its flagship Sol model, alongside Terra and Luna variants built for different performance and cost requirements. However, the company is limiting the initial rollout to a small group of trusted U.S.-based partners after a request from the U.S. government. The GPT-5.6 series introduces a new naming system, with Sol representing the highest capability tier, Terra offering GPT-5.5-level performance at half the cost, and Luna targeting lower-cost, faster AI applications. OpenAI said the models will become generally available through ChatGPT, Codex, and its API in the coming weeks. GPT-5.6 Sol also introduces a new maximum reasoning mode that gives the model more time to solve complex tasks. OpenAI is also launching an Ultra mode that uses subagents to tackle sophisticated workflows beyond the capabilities of a single AI agent. The company said GPT-5.6 Sol delivers its strongest performance yet in coding, biology, and cybersecurity while introducing its "most robust safety stack to date." According to OpenAI, GPT-5.6 Sol achieved a new state of the art on TerminalBench 2.1, a benchmark for command-line coding workflows. In biology, the company said the model outperformed GPT-5.5 on GeneBench v1 while using fewer output tokens. OpenAI also highlighted gains in cybersecurity. On ExploitBench, GPT-5.6 Sol matched the performance of Anthropic's Mythos Preview while using roughly one-third of the output tokens. On ExploitGym, developed by researchers at UC Berkeley with OpenAI and other frontier AI labs, all three GPT-5.6 models showed improved cyber capabilities as reasoning increased. Despite those gains, OpenAI said GPT-5.6 Sol does not cross the Cyber Critical threshold under its Preparedness Framework. "GPT-5.6 Sol is better at helping people find and fix vulnerabilities than reliably carrying out end-to-end attacks," the company said. The company also introduced a layered safety system that combines model-level protections, real-time misuse detection, account-level monitoring, differentiated access, and extensive automated and human red-teaming. OpenAI said it dedicated more than 700,000 A100-equivalent GPU hours to automated red-teaming to uncover jailbreak techniques before release. Unlike previous launches, GPT-5.6 will initially be available only to a select group of trusted partners. "As part of our ongoing engagement with the U.S. government, we previewed our plans and the models' capabilities ahead of today's launch," OpenAI said. "At their request, we are starting with a limited preview for a small group of trusted partners whose participation has been shared with the government, before releasing more broadly." OpenAI said it does not want government previews to become standard practice. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," the company said, adding that it is taking the temporary step while working with the administration on a repeatable framework for future frontier AI releases. CEO Sam Altman echoed that view on X, saying the government requested a limited preview instead of the broader launch OpenAI had planned. He added that the company hopes to make GPT-5.6 widely available as quickly as possible while developing a transparent process for future releases.

OpenAI will initially only release ChatGPT 5.6 to government-approved customers - Engadget

You may not be able to use the new ChatGPT 5.6 as soon as it's finished. According to a report in The Information, OpenAI plans to stagger the release of its new AI model, and the first users will only be parties that are approved by the federal government. The publication's sources said that, according to a staff memo from CEO Sam Altman, federal leaders will be "approving access customer by customer during this preview period," hopefully followed a "couple of weeks later" by a more general release of the 5.6 model. "We've made clear to the US government that this is not our preferred long term model, and will work with them and others in industry to achieve a more sustainable approach for future releases," Altman reportedly told employees in the memo. Several agencies appear to be involved in directing the change in course from OpenAI. The Information cited interactions with the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, as well as involvement from Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Neither the White House's nor the Office of the National Cyber Director's representatives replied to the publication's requests for comment. President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month asking AI companies to participate in a voluntary federal review of their more powerful models before they are publicly released. The government is expected to create a framework to standardize how it will assess new models. Shortly after, however, OpenAI rival Anthropic disabled all access to two of its recent models following a federal directive. That order didn't provide specifics around its security concerns, only that the government wanted to block access to Anthropic's tools for any foreign nationals. Between that instance and this additional stage to OpenAI's latest rollout, there still appears to be a fair bit of confusion around how the review process will work and just how voluntary it is.

The Trump administration just quietly changed how OpenAI will launch its next model

Up until now, every major AI model launch has followed roughly the same script. I've personally seen it dozens of times for years. It goes something like this: big tech announces its latest model, opens access to developers or subscribers and gradually expands availability as demand grows. But that is about to change. OpenAI's latest model ChatGPT-5.6 was rumored to roll out yesterday, June 25, 2026. However, according to a new report from The Information, the Trump administration asked OpenAI to stagger the release of GPT-5.6 over security concerns, limiting early access to a small group of partners while the federal government approves customers one by one. If that's how future frontier models are released, it represents one of the biggest changes to AI deployment we've seen since ChatGPT launched. The future of AI models with government regulation According to the report, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees that GPT-5.6 would initially launch as a limited preview rather than a broad public release. During that preview period, government officials would reportedly approve access on a customer-by-customer basis before a wider rollout a few weeks later. The request reportedly came after discussions with the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. That might sound like a small operational detail, but it's actually a significant shift. Until recently, governments largely focused on regulating AI after companies released their products or encouraged voluntary safety testing before launch. This appears to move Washington into an entirely different role: influencing who gets access before a frontier model reaches the public. It didn't happen in isolation The request also comes just weeks after the administration's highly publicized intervention involving Anthropic's Fable 5, which sparked industry debate over how much authority governments should have over cutting-edge AI releases. Earlier this month, President Trump actually scrapped an executive order directing federal agencies to establish a voluntary framework for reviewing advanced AI models before public release, with an emphasis on cybersecurity and critical infrastructure. However, this development suggests the government is moving toward a consistent process for evaluating the most capable AI systems before they become widely available. Why this matters for everyone Most people won't care whether GPT-5.6 launches today or two weeks from now. But what does matter is who decides when powerful AI models become available. If government agencies begin reviewing frontier models before release, and influencing who receives early access, we could be entering an era where advanced AI is treated like critical infrastructure. That's a dramatic departure from the rapid-fire launches we've grown used to over the past three years. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Subscribe to Tom's Guide on YouTube and follow us on TikTok. Finally, you can visit our dedicated Tom's Guide Savings Squad hub for expert help on getting the best products for less.

OpenAI Launches GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna in Limited Preview

OpenAI today launched a limited preview of its GPT-5.6 series, which includes flagship model Sol, a balanced everyday work model named Terra, and Luna, a fast and affordable model. Terra is similar in performance to GPT-5.5 but it is 2x cheaper, and Luna offers "strong capability" at OpenAI's lowest price. GPT-5.6 Sol is OpenAI's strongest model to date, with agentic improvements in coding, biology, and cybersecurity. There is a new "max" reasoning effort and an "ultra" mode that uses sub-agents for complex work. OpenAI says GPT-5.6 Sol has its most "robust safety stack to date" with protections for high-risk activity, sensitive cyber requests, and misuse. It has been tested for weaknesses and hardened against real-world attacks. OpenAI says safeguards allow the model to deliver "substantial benefit for legitimate defensive work" while limiting prohibited offensive use. It is better at helping users find and fix vulnerabilities than carrying out end-to-end attacks, according to OpenAI. The Trump administration is limiting the launch of GPT-5.6, and OpenAI agreed to hold back on releasing it to all users. The model is instead available for a small group of trusted partners at the current time, but OpenAI is planning for a wider launch after further testing. In its GPT-5.6 announcement, OpenAI pushed back against the administration's request to hold the model back and said the government AI access process should not become the long-term default. We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default. 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. The Trump administration is putting together a process for benchmarking and assessing new AI models prior to launch, per a June 2 executive order. The administration previously forced Anthropic to remove access to Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5, even though Anthropic adhered to a voluntary government review process and added guardrails based on government feedback. The GPT-5.6 models are available through the API and Codex to a trusted set of OpenAI partners and organizations. OpenAI says they will be available more broadly in ChatGPT, Codex, and the API "soon."

The US government asks OpenAI to slow its next model's release

Sam Altman told staff Washington wants GPT-5.6 released first to a short list of trusted partners, with access approved customer by customer. For years the debate over slowing down powerful AI models was a matter for company safety teams and outside critics. Now it has a government request attached. The Trump administration has asked OpenAI to stagger the release of an upcoming model the first time the US government has preemptively asked an American AI company to restrict a launch before it happens. The instruction reached employees from the top. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman told staff on Wednesday that the government had requested the company initially release the model to a short list of trusted partners before pushing it out more widely. The government, Altman told staff, would be "approving access customer by customer during this preview period." The request did not come from a single office. According to the reporting, it emerged from conversations with two government bodies, the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which frames the concern as one of cybersecurity rather than competition or content. The worry, as described, is what a sufficiently capable model could do in the wrong hands, and the staggered rollout is meant to limit that exposure during an initial window. The timing places the request inside a wider shift. It comes roughly two weeks after rival Anthropic saw its most capable offerings pulled from the market under a government directive, which suggests Washington is now actively shaping the release schedules of the leading labs rather than reacting to them after the fact. The mechanism described is notable in its own right. A customer-by-customer approval process during a preview period would, if it operates as reported, give a government agency a direct hand in deciding who gets early access to a frontier model. It echoes the gated rollout OpenAI used for GPT-5.4-Cyber, released to vetted security teams under a Trusted Access programme. That is a markedly more hands-on posture than the voluntary commitments and after-the-fact evaluations that have characterised US AI policy to date, and it shifts the locus of control over a release, at least temporarily, from the company to the state. For OpenAI, the arrangement cuts in more than one direction. A staggered rollout slows the company's ability to put its newest model in front of paying customers and developers, only months after it launched GPT-5.5 into the enterprise market, which carries a commercial cost in a market where rivals move quickly. It also offers a measure of political cover: a model released with the government's explicit involvement is harder to blame the company for if something goes wrong. How OpenAI weighs those against each other will become clearer once the preview period, and whatever follows it, is underway. Much of the detail still rests on Altman's account to staff and on reporting from sources rather than an official government statement, and OpenAI has not published the terms of the arrangement. The model name, the customer-by-customer approval mechanism, and the agencies involved come from those accounts. What the episode establishes, if it holds, is a new posture: a US administration treating a frontier model's release as something to be gated, and a leading lab agreeing to the gate. The next question is whether this becomes the template for every release that follows.

Trump administration gets OpenAI to slow-track new model release over security concerns

This comes after an executive order was signed, calling on certain AI companies to voluntarily submit their new AI models for governmental review. OpenAI has just released a powerful new AI model, GPT 5.6, but it may be a while before you'll even get to try it out. Contrary to previous rollouts, the company won't be releasing GPT 5.6 to the public initially. Instead, it plans to share the model with only a select group of partners for now to appease the Trump administration. According to a report from The Information, CEO Sam Altman told OpenAI staff that the government would be "approving access customer by customer" when talking about GPT 5.6's release. Altman reportedly added that if everything goes well during this limited release, the company hopes to roll the model out to the general public. It appears OpenAI expects this preview period to last for a couple of weeks. It's reported that the model is currently being reviewed by the administration over security concerns. Additionally, it appears that the government is working closely with OpenAI for the release. The Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy have reportedly requested access to the model. If this sounds a little familiar, it's because President Trump signed an executive order related to this earlier this month. That executive order calls on certain AI companies to voluntarily submit their new AI models for governmental review before releasing them to the public. It appears that OpenAI has decided to play ball, leading to a slower rollout of its latest AI model. In a newly published blog, OpenAI says there will be three versions of GPT 5.6: the flagship model (Sol), a balanced model (Terra), and a fast and affordable model (Luna). It adds that Sol will have the company's "most robust safety stack to date," with strengthened protections against higher-risk activity, sensitive cyber requests, and repeated misuse. In terms of capabilities, GPT 5.6 is said to offer improved agentic capabilities in coding, biology, and cybersecurity.

OpenAI releases powerful new GPT-5.6 model under restrictions

Why it matters: Washington is starting to treat the most advanced U.S.-developed AI models as products that need government review before they can be widely released. The big picture: The move follows similar U.S. restrictions on Anthropic's powerful Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models. Driving the news: OpenAI is releasing three versions of GPT-5.6: Sol, Terra and Luna. Sol is the most powerful. Terra offers a balance of efficiency and power and Luna is designed for speed and affordability. * Sol is OpenAI's most powerful model yet, the company said. * OpenAI will add options that allow for more reasoning as well as an "ultra" mode that splits work among multiple sub-agents. GPT-5.6 is available as a limited preview to around twenty companies. Their participation has been shared with the government, OpenAI says. * Its goal is a broad release in the coming weeks. Between the lines: OpenAI made clear that while it is cooperating with the federal government, it doesn't see the current approach as either ideal or sustainable. * "We don't believe this kind of government access process shouldbecome the long-term default," the company said in a blog post. "It keeps the best tools from users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders, and global partners who need them." * However, it said: "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." What they're saying: OpenAI is positioning what's happening with GPT-5.6 as the result of being in an in-between period where the government has announced a plan to evaluate new model releases but has yet to detail how that process will work. * Anthropic is also currently negotiating with the government over safeguards before releasing its latest model; and OpenAI's current situation shows Anthropic is not being singled out anymore. * OpenAI said that it believes the Trump Administration still has the best interests of U.S. AI competitiveness in mind despite its recent moves. Zoom in: One of the big concerns around the latest models has been their significantly increased cybersecurity capabilities. * OpenAI says it believes "GPT-5.6 Sol is better at helping people find and fix vulnerabilities than reliably carrying out end-to-end attacks" and said the model's capabilities don't reach the "critical" level outlined in it preparedness framework. * "Based on our assessment of the model and safeguards, we expect substantial benefit for legitimate defensive work, while meaningfully constraining prohibited offensive use," it said. What to watch: By August, as part of the Executive Order, the administration must establish a classified process to assess AI models' cyber capabilities and determine which qualify as "covered frontier models," a designation for AI systems with advanced cyber capabilities.

White House wants OpenAI to limit the launch of its next model

William Gibson once famously said that "the future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed." It appears that the same goes for frontier AI models. According to The Information, the White House told OpenAI it wants the company to release its next model in a limited fashion, to a select group of close partners. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly told staff that the company's newest model, GPT 5.6, will be launched very differently than previous ones, with the government approving access "customer by customer." Following this limited release period, the company should be able to launch the model more broadly a "couple of weeks" later, says the report. OpenAI competitor Anthropic recently had to pull its most powerful model, Fable 5, after Trump's administration intervened to keep the model out of foreign hands. The company previously launched Mythos, an even more powerful model, as a limited release open only to a small set of pre-approved customers. As for OpenAI's GPT 5.6, the model is reportedly a "meaningful improvement" over GPT 5.5, both in terms of context window size and efficiency. In a memo sent to employees, Altman reportedly said that GPT 5.6 is not the company's preferred long term model, and that OpenAI will work with the government and others in the industry "to achieve a more sustainable approach for future releases."

OpenAI staggers AI model release after Trump administration request

Sam Altman announces limited preview of GPT 5.6 in move that echoes launch of Anthropic's Mythos OpenAI is staggering the release of its latest AI model after a request from the US government, in a move echoing the launch of Anthropic's Mythos product. Sam Altman, the chief executive of the company behind ChatGPT, told staff this week that GPT 5.6 would be released in a limited preview to a small group of partners, according to the tech publication The Information. Altman said the federal government had asked for a staggered release. The CEO told staff in a memo that the government would be "approving access customer by customer during this preview period" for GPT 5.6 and that it would be released more generally "a couple of weeks later" if the process went well. "We've made clear to the US government that this is not our preferred long term model, and will work with them and others in industry to achieve a more sustainable approach for future releases," Altman said in the memo, obtained by The Information. Anthropic, OpenAI's close rival, had carried out a similar release programme for its Mythos model but has now pulled the technology entirely after the US government ordered the company to stop foreign nationals from accessing public versions of the model, which has powerful cyber-hacking capabilities. OpenAI had been working with the US government over a preview of the model, which would be used to power OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot. The staggered release was requested after conversations with two government agencies: the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The Information reported that Donald Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, had intervened against even a limited release, calling Altman to demand approvals from other agencies. This month the US president signed an executive order to create a voluntary framework for the federal government to vet powerful new AI models before they are released. The order represents a shift from the White House's previously deregulatory stance on AI. Last year the vice-president, JD Vance, said "excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry". However, the White House's stance has changed against a backdrop rapidly improving model capabilities, including Mythos which has been described by the UK's AI security body as a "step up" over previous cutting-edge models. OpenAI has been approached for comment.

OpenAI unveils GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna models -- but only accessible to limited preview partners for now, per US Gov

OpenAI is announcing a limited preview of its next-generation GPT-5.6 model series today, introducing three distinct, capability-tiered models -- Sol, Terra, and Luna -- designed to re-engineer developer and enterprise workflows. Rolled out initially to a select cohort of approximately 20 trusted organizations in coordination with the U.S. government, the new series establishes a permanent shift toward multi-agent architecture, deep-reasoning configurations, and granular token pricing. The flagship model, GPT-5.6 Sol, enters the market priced at $5.00 per million input tokens and $30.00 per million output tokens, bringing a major step-change in performance for long-horizon coding and cybersecurity tasks. However, this rollout marks a highly unusual chapter in AI deployment. Because OpenAI is coordinating its release framework with the White House ahead of a broader public launch, enterprise buyers must navigate a novel landscape of real-time safety interventions, mandatory compliance parameters, and structured token caching systems. Technology: Deep Reasoning and the Multi-Agent Paradigm The core architectural evolution of the GPT-5.6 series centers on how compute is allocated during inference. Rather than relying on instantaneous token generation, OpenAI introduces a new reasoning effort mode, which explicitly grants the flagship Sol model extended time to reason through highly complex problems deeply. Compounding this is the debut of an mode. This configuration expands past the structural boundaries of a single standalone model, instead deploying specialized "subagents" to divide, conquer, and accelerate multi-step, long-horizon projects. Data from initial evaluations indicates that this subagent coordination shifts the frontier for programmatic execution: * Command-Line Automation: On Terminal-Bench 2.1 -- which evaluates planning, tool usage, and iterative error correction in command-line environments -- GPT-5.6 Sol (Ultra) achieves a state-of-the-art score of 91.91%. This edges out GPT-5.6 Sol (Max) at 88.76% and eclipses Claude Mythos 5 at 88%, as documented in Screenshot 2026-06-26 at 12.46.37 PM.png. * Professional Workflows: On Agent's Last Exam, a benchmark spanning 55 professional domains to test long-running workflows, GPT-5.6 Sol is the only model to clear the 50% success threshold, scoring 50.9% in code mode while displaying superior token efficiency relative to preceding architectures, as shown in Screenshot 2026-06-26 at 12.46.55 PM.png. * Quantitative Biology: On GeneBench v1, which measures long-horizon genomics analysis, the flagship model systematically outperforms GPT-5.5 while consuming fewer total tokens across simulated latency periods, as detailed in Screenshot 2026-06-26 at 12.47.11 PM.png. Product: Durable Tiers and Prompt Caching Economics OpenAI is codifying its product nomenclature into permanent capability tiers that will advance independently on their own cadences. This model family provides businesses with explicit options to balance intelligence against operational latency and financial overhead: * GPT-5.6 Sol (Flagship): Optimized for deep reasoning, heavy vulnerability research, and advanced multi-agent coordination ($5.00 input / $30.00 output per 1M tokens). * GPT-5.6 Terra (Balanced): Built for efficient, high-volume production workloads, Terra delivers competitive parity with the older GPT-5.5 flagship but is explicitly "2x cheaper" at $2.50 input and $15.00 output per million tokens. * GPT-5.6 Luna (Fast): Optimized for rapid, low-cost everyday utility pipelines, priced at $1.00 input and $6.00 output per million tokens. Predictable Prompt Caching Mechanics To help enterprises control the unpredictable cost curves of running agentic loops, the GPT-5.6 API introduces a revamped prompt caching protocol. Developers can now implement explicit cache breakpoints, backed by a guaranteed 30-minute minimum cache lifetime. Under this framework, initial cache writes carry a 1.25x premium over the model's standard uncached input rate, but subsequent cache reads receive a steep 90% discount. For systems that routinely pass massive context windows or codebase definitions back into the model, this predictability is a critical financial guardrail. Furthermore, for enterprise applications where latency is the primary barrier to adoption, OpenAI is launching GPT-5.6 Sol on Cerebras hardware this July. This infrastructure partnership claims processing speeds of up to 750 tokens per second, targeting specialized enterprise applications requiring real-time, frontier-grade reasoning. Enterprise Implications: High Security and Algorithmic Friction For corporate engineering, information security, and compliance teams, the deployment of GPT-5.6 requires a meticulous look at its security architecture. The models are accessible under a commercial enterprise API license, with open-source options completely off the table due to the dual-use risks inherent to its cyber capabilities. To achieve clearance for release, OpenAI dedicated roughly 700,000 A100e GPU hours solely to automated red-teaming. This compute was allocated to discovering "universal jailbreaks" -- systemic attack vectors designed to bypass safeguards across varied contexts, rather than single-prompt workarounds. This massive testing phase feeds directly into a highly strict, multi-layered safeguard stack that operates in real time: Operational Friction for Dual-Use Security Work This real-time safety stack introduces distinct operational hurdles for enterprise security teams. Because legitimate defensive work -- such as code reviews, vulnerability discovery, patch engineering, and defensive testing -- frequently utilizes the exact same code primitives as offensive exploits, OpenAI admits that its classifiers may regularly trigger false positives. During this preview period, enterprise developers should expect localized latency spikes, paused API generations, and intermittent request refusals. Persistent flagging can trigger automated account-level reviews across historical conversations to evaluate if an enterprise client is engaging in malicious behavior or standard security research. OpenAI is currently negotiating longer-term enterprise safety compliance controls, including customer-operated safety overrides and privacy-preserving detection mechanisms, to insulate corporate data from manual review pipelines. Importantly, OpenAI notes that under testing, Sol remains optimized for defensive containment rather than offensive deployment. In evaluations running against the Chromium and Firefox codebases, the model successfully isolated bugs and exploitation primitives but was unable to autonomously engineer a functional, full-chain exploit, keeping it safely below the organization's "Cyber Critical" alert threshold. The Geopolitics of the Phased Release The broader rollout of the GPT-5.6 series reflects an escalating entanglement between frontier AI labs and national security protocols. The decision to limit initial access to a small circle of vetted partners whose details are shared with the U.S. government stems from direct coordination regarding the developing cyber Executive Order framework. OpenAI has taken the unusual step of publicly critiquing this sovereign gatekeeping within its official product announcement documentation. The company states plainly: "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default. It keeps the best tools from users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders, and global partners who need them." This tension highlights the precarious position of modern tech enterprises. While organizations can leverage unprecedented agentic efficiency and robust defensive patching capabilities via benchmarks like ExploitGym and ExploitBench, they must also accept that access to premier tools remains subject to diplomatic and regulatory authorization. General availability across ChatGPT and the wider public API is expected to roll out incrementally over the coming weeks.

OpenAI debuts GPT-5.6 models with limited access after US government request

OpenAI has introduced GPT-5.6, a new family of large language models led by its flagship Sol model, alongside Terra and Luna variants built for different performance and cost requirements. However, the company is limiting the initial rollout to a small group of trusted U.S.-based partners after a request from the U.S. government. The GPT-5.6 series introduces a new naming system, with Sol representing the highest capability tier, Terra offering GPT-5.5-level performance at half the cost, and Luna targeting lower-cost, faster AI applications. OpenAI said the models will become generally available through ChatGPT, Codex, and its API in the coming weeks. GPT-5.6 Sol also introduces a new maximum reasoning mode that gives the model more time to solve complex tasks. OpenAI is also launching an Ultra mode that uses subagents to tackle sophisticated workflows beyond the capabilities of a single AI agent. The company said GPT-5.6 Sol delivers its strongest performance yet in coding, biology, and cybersecurity while introducing its "most robust safety stack to date." According to OpenAI, GPT-5.6 Sol achieved a new state of the art on TerminalBench 2.1, a benchmark for command-line coding workflows. In biology, the company said the model outperformed GPT-5.5 on GeneBench v1 while using fewer output tokens. OpenAI also highlighted gains in cybersecurity. On ExploitBench, GPT-5.6 Sol matched the performance of Anthropic's Mythos Preview while using roughly one-third of the output tokens. On ExploitGym, developed by researchers at UC Berkeley with OpenAI and other frontier AI labs, all three GPT-5.6 models showed improved cyber capabilities as reasoning increased. Despite those gains, OpenAI said GPT-5.6 Sol does not cross the Cyber Critical threshold under its Preparedness Framework. "GPT-5.6 Sol is better at helping people find and fix vulnerabilities than reliably carrying out end-to-end attacks," the company said. The company also introduced a layered safety system that combines model-level protections, real-time misuse detection, account-level monitoring, differentiated access, and extensive automated and human red-teaming. OpenAI said it dedicated more than 700,000 A100-equivalent GPU hours to automated red-teaming to uncover jailbreak techniques before release. Unlike previous launches, GPT-5.6 will initially be available only to a select group of trusted partners. "As part of our ongoing engagement with the U.S. government, we previewed our plans and the models' capabilities ahead of today's launch," OpenAI said. "At their request, we are starting with a limited preview for a small group of trusted partners whose participation has been shared with the government, before releasing more broadly." OpenAI said it does not want government previews to become standard practice. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," the company said, adding that it is taking the temporary step while working with the administration on a repeatable framework for future frontier AI releases. CEO Sam Altman echoed that view on X, saying the government requested a limited preview instead of the broader launch OpenAI had planned. He added that the company hopes to make GPT-5.6 widely available as quickly as possible while developing a transparent process for future releases.

OpenAI reveals its most advanced GPT-5.6 model, but you can't access it yet

GPT-5.6 brings new reasoning, autonomy, and cybersecurity capabilities, but its rollout is currently limited to government-approved customers. OpenAI has officially taken the wraps off GPT-5.6, its most advanced family of AI models to date. There's just one catch: unless you're one of a handful of approved customers, you won't be able to try it anytime soon. Instead of a broad launch, the company is beginning with a tightly controlled preview while it works through a new U.S. government review process. GPT-5.6 is here, but only a few people can use it The GPT-5.6 family consists of three models: Sol, the flagship model designed for the most demanding workloads, Terra for balanced reasoning and everyday tasks, and Luna, a faster and more affordable option. According to OpenAI, GPT-5.6 delivers improvements in coding, scientific reasoning, cybersecurity, biology, and long-running autonomous tasks. The flagship Sol model also introduces advanced operating modes like Max for deeper reasoning and Ultra for orchestrating sub-agents across complex workflows. However, the biggest headline isn't the technology itself. It's who gets to use it. As first reported by The Wall Street Journal, GPT-5.6 will initially be available only to a small group of customers approved by the Trump administration while the model undergoes additional national security reviews. OpenAI says this is a temporary measure during the rollout of a new federal oversight framework and hopes to make GPT-5.6 broadly available in the coming weeks. Recommended Videos Beyond government scrutiny, OpenAI also appears to be doubling down on security from a technical standpoint. Alongside GPT-5.6 Sol, the company says it has deployed its "most robust safety stack yet," strengthening real-time protections against high-risk cyber activity and repeated misuse attempts. OpenAI says the model was hardened through extensive human red-teaming as well as over 700,000 A100 GPU-equivalent hours of automated safety testing before release. The model is impressive. The rollout may be the bigger story. The decision to restrict access to GPT-5.6 and allow only a small group of approved customers to use OpenAI's most advanced models isn't particularly surprising. Just a few weeks ago, the U.S. government forced Anthropic to restrict access to its Claude Mythos 5 and Fable 5 frontier AI models over national security concerns. While Mythos has since returned for select users, Fable 5 remains unavailable to the broader public and is currently restricted to approved U.S.-based entities. OpenAI is now following a similar playbook. "As part of our ongoing engagement with the U.S. government, we previewed our plans and the models' capabilities ahead of today's launch. At their request, we are starting with a limited preview for a small group of trusted partners whose participation has been shared with the government, before releasing more broadly," OpenAI said in its announcement. The company says it will continue working through the required security vetting process before expanding access to GPT-5.6, although it hasn't shared a timeline for a wider rollout. At the same time, OpenAI made it clear that it does not believe this kind of government approval process should become the long-term default for releasing frontier AI models. Beyond government scrutiny, OpenAI also has another reason to proceed cautiously. Earlier this week, Anthropic alleged that Chinese tech giant Alibaba used thousands of user accounts to systematically access Claude and distill its responses to improve the Qwen family of AI models. Similar allegations have surfaced in the past, underscoring the growing concern that frontier AI models could be copied or exploited before their developers can adequately secure them. Whether that's a direct factor behind OpenAI's cautious rollout or not, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: launching the world's smartest AI models is no longer just a technical challenge. It's quickly becoming a geopolitical one

OpenAI agrees to stagger rollout of its most powerful model to only Trump-approved customers | Fortune

OpenAI is staggering the rollout of its newest and most powerful AI model after a request from the Trump administration. To get access to the new model, customers must first be cleared by the U.S. government, the company said on Friday. The model, called GPT-5.6 Sol, is the flagship in a new tier of more advanced models that includes a more efficient model called Terra and its cheaper cousin Luna. OpenAI says that Sol is its strongest model yet, able to complete 50% of long-running professional tasks and tops all previous OpenAI models on coding capabilities. OpenAI said it hopes to make all three generally available in the coming weeks. The Information first reported that the Trump administration asks OpenAI to stagger release of the new model over security concerns. The move represents a broader shift in how the U.S. government is approaching frontier AI. Advanced cyber capabilities displayed by Anthropic's Mythos and OpenAI's GPT-cyber have caused concern in Washington. By limiting access to the government is attempting to ensure that those capabilities don't end up in the hands of bad actors or hostile nation-states It is also the second time in a month that a frontier lab's best model has been held back from general release over capability concerns. In early June, the Commerce Department issued export controls on Anthropic that forced the lab to cut off foreign access to two of its top models, citing national security concerns. Anthropic disputed the order, but was left with no choice but to pull the models offline. Earlier this month, Trump also signed an executive order directing federal agencies to establish a framework under which AI companies could voluntarily provide the government with early access to powerful new models for up to 30 days before broader release. OpenAI describes its own situation as voluntary, in contrast to Anthropic's situation. "As part of our ongoing engagement with the U.S. government, we previewed our plans and the models' capabilities ahead of today's launch. At their request, we are starting with a limited preview for a small group of trusted partners whose participation has been shared with the government," the company said in a blog post. However, the company also said it was not in favour of this kind of government access process becoming the "long-term default." We are taking this short-term step because we believe it is the strongest path to broader availability in the coming weeks," the company wrote, adding it was working with the Administration to develop the cyber Executive Order framework and a "repeatable process for future model releases." Capability concerns OpenAI emphasized that Sol made its strongest gains in cybersecurity, specifically vulnerability and exploitation. There will be two new modes: "max," and "ultra," which will allow the model to reason longer and coordinate agents for specific tasks. On a key cybersecurity benchmark, OpenAI previously said the model was "competitive with" Anthropic's Mythos. GPT-5.6 Sol uses approximately one third of the tokens used by Mythos but appears to lag slightly behind Mythos 5, a slightly more capable model from Anthropic. OpenAI is pairing the release with what it calls its most extensive safeguards to date, and says that the model preview will police its own use. For higher-risk cases, the company says a larger model will review the conversation and could withhold responding if it's judged to violate policy. It said that, despite the government gating, Sol did not cross the "Cyber Critical" threshold in its "Preparedness Framework": in tests with Firefox and Chrome, it found the seeds of an exploit but did not produce a working one. OpenAI said it had spent 700,000 GPU hours hacking itself to try to identify vulnerabilities, and humans will conduct two more weeks of the tests before launch. The limited rollout is a transitional period, and linked to President Trump's June 2 executive order that directed agencies to build a framework for vetting models before release, according to OpenAI. Since that framework doesn't exist yet, OpenAI says it conducted a phased rollout at the government's request. The initial users are customers who have been approved by the US government, with the list expanding next week, according to OpenAI. The company said that the process looks like OpenAI sharing names and the government giving feedback. Sol is priced at $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens, compared to Terra at $2.50 and $15, respectively, and Luna at $1 and $6. An improvised licensing regime The recent steps toward any kind of attempt to regulate AI also represents a striking reversal for an administration that, on its first day in office, had rescinded a Biden-era requirement for AI companies to submit safety tests to the government, calling it overly burdensome. However, critics have argued that, by pursuing an ad-hoc approach to containing the risks, what is emerging looks less like a coherent regulatory system and more like an improvised licensing regime. Jonathan Iwry, a fellow at the Wharton Accountable AI Lab, previously told Fortune that the government is "repurposing existing legal authorities into what is effectively a backdoor licensing regime." Dean Ball, a former Trump administration AI adviser who has since become a vocal critic of its recent decisions, argued that since Mythos, the United States has had an "informal" licensing regime for AI, "with no consistent rules or firm boundaries on state power or public transparency." Critics warn that an informal system, with no published criteria or appeal process, opens the door to discrimination -- giving the government unchecked power to decide which companies get access to the market and which do not, with no legal recourse for those on the wrong side of that decision.

OpenAI Rolls Out GPT-5.6 -- But Only for Some Users Due to Trump Admin

GPT-5.6 adds new reasoning modes, stronger cybersecurity capabilities, and expanded safeguards against misuse. OpenAI on Friday unveiled the GPT-5.6 family of AI models, launching a limited preview of its new models codenamed Sol, Terra, and Luna before a broader planned release expected in the coming weeks. The announcement comes one day after reports that President Donald Trump's administration asked OpenAI to limit GPT-5.6's initial release while officials evaluate the model under a developing federal framework for frontier AI systems -- reports that proved accurate. Calling it the flagship model, OpenAI said GPT-5.6 Sol improves performance across coding, biology, and cybersecurity. The company said Terra delivers performance comparable to GPT-5.5 at a lower cost, while Luna is designed for high-volume, low-cost workloads. The release also introduces "max" and "ultra" reasoning modes, giving Sol more time to solve complex problems or coordinate multiple subagents for demanding tasks. "We're beginning a limited preview of the GPT‑5.6 series: Sol, our flagship model; Terra, a balanced model for everyday work; and Luna, a fast and affordable model," OpenAI wrote. "Terra has competitive performance to GPT‑5.5 while being 2x cheaper, and Luna brings strong capability at our lowest cost." In the announcement, OpenAI confirmed it shared the models with the U.S. government before launch, and is beginning with a limited preview at the administration's request while the two sides develop a process for future frontier AI releases. "As part of our ongoing engagement with the U.S. government, we previewed our plans and the models' capabilities ahead of today's launch," the company wrote. "At their request, we are starting with a limited preview for a small group of trusted partners whose participation has been shared with the government, before releasing more broadly." The move follows the administration's earlier order that Anthropic limit access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, making GPT-5.6 the second frontier AI system this month whose rollout has been impacted by the White House. In testing, OpenAI claimed Sol achieved the highest score on TerminalBench, a benchmark for command-line software engineering tasks, and outperformed GPT-5.5, Claude Mythos 5, and Fable 5. "GPT‑5.6 Sol also shows broad improvements in biology workflows," OpenAI wrote. "On GeneBench v1, which evaluates long-horizon genomics and quantitative-biology analyses, it achieves stronger results than GPT‑5.5 while using fewer tokens." In terms of cybersecurity, OpenAI said GPT-5.6 pairs stronger cybersecurity capabilities with expanded safeguards designed to support defensive security research, while limiting offensive misuse. OpenAI added that the model remains below its Cyber Critical threshold because, although it can identify vulnerabilities and exploit components, it could not autonomously produce a complete exploit chain during testing. "GPT‑5.6 is trained to refuse prohibited cyber assistance, including when users attempt to disguise their intent or jailbreak the model," the company said. "These model-level safeguards establish the first boundary around what the model should and should not help with." According to OpenAI, during the preview, GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna will be available through the API and Codex to a select group of partners before expanding publicly to ChatGPT and other users. OpenAI also introduced a new naming system for the model family and said GPT-5.6 Sol will launch on Cerebras in July, offering inference speeds of up to 750 tokens per second. Despite the ordered limited rollout, OpenAI said it still intends to make the models broadly available to the public. "We believe in broad access, and we plan to make GPT‑5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna generally available in the coming weeks," they said.

OpenAI restricts limited release of new model to US only

San Francisco (United States) (AFP) - OpenAI on Friday launched a US-only preview of its latest powerful AI model series to a limited group of partners at the request of the US government, the company said. The release comes two weeks after the White House took Silicon Valley by surprise by ordering OpenAI's rival Anthropic to ban all foreign nationals from accessing its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, citing national security concerns. Anthropic swiftly shut down all access to those models, saying it could not reliably comply with the restriction on foreign nationals. The latest models from leading AI companies, such as Anthropic's Mythos series and now OpenAI's GPT-5.6, have drawn major concerns over their reportedly unprecedented ability to identify software vulnerabilities -- weaknesses in code that hackers can exploit. Under pressure over the novelty of their capabilities, Trump earlier this month signed an executive order setting up a voluntary federal review of national security risks in advanced AI models before their release. The White House has communicated little about how it will enforce its executive order -- in which companies are understood to be participating voluntarily -- and what models would fall under its review rules. The intervention was striking for a White House that has otherwise pushed to loosen AI oversight -- even moving to block states from writing their own rules. The strong action against Anthropic has drawn accusations of government overreach, and OpenAI said it was uncomfortable with the process it was required to follow for its new models. OpenAI said it briefed the US government on its new models' capabilities ahead of the launch and, at the government's request, is beginning with a limited preview for a select group of trusted partners whose identities have been shared with authorities. The partners are US-based, but OpenAI said overseas employees at those companies or entities would also have access to the new models. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," OpenAI said in a blog post. "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." When Anthropic was initially targeted, some believed the safety-focused company was being unfairly singled out by the Trump administration for political reasons. In an earlier clash with the White House, Anthropic angered Trump's team by refusing to allow its technology to be used for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, leading the Pentagon to cancel its contracts with the company. That feud is now being litigated in two separate lawsuits. Three new models OpenAI's GPT-5.6 series comprises three new models: Sol, the company's new flagship; Terra, a mid-range model for everyday work; and Luna, a fast, low-cost option. Once broadly available, Terra would be priced at half the cost of its predecessor GPT-5.5, the company said, as it seeks to lock in customers amid fierce competition from Anthropic and Google. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have filed confidential IPO documents with US regulators and are targeting public listings at valuations approaching $1 trillion, raising the commercial stakes of the AI arms race between them.

Trump administration asks OpenAI to limit next model release over security concerns

Why it matters: This marks the first time the U.S. government has preemptively asked an American AI company to restrict the launch of a model before release. Driving the news: The White House's Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy asked OpenAI to limit the rollout of GPT-5.6 as the administration builds a framework for testing and evaluating the security of new models, per the source. * The Information reported earlier Thursday that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared the plans for a limited rollout in a memo to employees. * "We've made clear to the U.S. government that this is not our preferred long term model, and will work with them and others in industry to achieve a more sustainable approach for future releases," Altman said in the memo, according to The Information. Between the lines: The source told Axios that OpenAI has been proactively working with the administration on the model release since before Anthropic revoked access to its frontier models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, over a rare Commerce Department directive. * The White House has been looped in on the capabilities of OpenAI's new model and has been able to preview its abilities. Flashback: President Trump signed an AI security executive order earlier this month that directs several agencies to stand up a voluntary testing protocol for AI companies prior to releasing a new model. * Political infighting over how restrictive and mandatory that program should be delayed the executive order for weeks. The big picture: AI labs are caught in a tough position as they race to release new models to compete not only with one another, but with increasingly capable Chinese open-source models. * Meanwhile, security officials and corporate leaders are growing increasingly concerned about what happens when bad actors -- including nation-state spies, cybercriminals and rogue insiders -- get their hands on these highly capable models. What to watch: Altman said in the memo that he hopes to be able to release GPT-5.6 a "couple of weeks later," per The Information.

OpenAI introduces GPT-5.6 to challenge Claude Mythos 5

OpenAI Group PBC today introduced GPT-5.6, a new series of large language models that it says can outperform Claude Mythos 5 across certain coding tasks. The most advanced algorithm in the lineup is known as Sol. It's available alongside a mid-range option called Terra and an entry-level model dubbed Luna. All three LLMs come with two modes that weren't included in GPT-5.5. The first is a "max" setting that increases the amount of time GPT-5.6 spends on a task to boost reasoning quality. Additionally, OpenAI has developed an "ultra" mode that can spin up multiple subagents to parallelize work. The company describes Sol as the most capable LLM it has built to date. The model scored 88.8% on a popular AI benchmark called TerminalBench-2.1 that includes 89 complex programming tasks. When the company enabled the "ultra" setting, Sol's score increased to 91.9%. Anthropic PBC's flagship Claude Mythos 5 model managed 88%. Claude Mythos 5 was preceded by a model called Mythos Preview that made its debut in April. According to Anthropic, the latter LLM has identified more than 10,000 high-severity and critical software vulnerabilities. OpenAI says that Sol nearly matches Mythos Preview's performance on a cybersecurity research benchmark called ExploitBench. The GPT-5.6 series also brings efficiency improvements. OpenAI had Sol tackle GeneBench v1, a collection of scientific data analysis tasks that it released in April. The model matched the performance of the company's previous flagship LLM using fewer tokens. Sol includes guardrails designed to prevent it from supporting malicious activities such as developing hacking campaigns. If the controls fail to prevent the LLM from generating harmful output, a specialized large reasoning model filters the prompt response before it reaches the user. OpenAI says that the GPT-5.6 series can not only block risky requests but also fend off cyberattacks. The company ran a series of red teaming exercises to find universal jailbreaks, hacking tactics that can be used to create not one but multiple malicious prompts. Some of the tests were carried out automatically using "700,000 A100-equivalent GPU hours." OpenAI used the test findings to improve its new model lineup's security. Terra and Luna, the two lower-end GPT-5.6 models that debuted alongside Sol, trade off some output quality for increased cost-efficiency. Sol is priced at $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens. Terra costs half as much while Luna offers 80% lower rates. At the request of the U.S. government, OpenAI is limiting GPT-6.5 access to a "small group of trusted partners" on launch. The company plans to move the LLM series into general availability in a few weeks. Additionally, OpenAI will bring Sol to newly public Cerebras Systems Inc.'s WSE-3 wafer-size AI chip.

Trump Administration Asks OpenAI to Limit GPT-5.6 Rollout: Reports

The move comes after years of calls from leading AI developers for stronger oversight of frontier models. President Donald Trump's administration has asked OpenAI to limit the initial release of GPT-5.6 to a small group of government-approved partners, while federal officials evaluate the model, according to reports by The Information and Axios. The request marks the second time this month that the U.S. government has intervened to limit the release of a frontier AI model, following its order that Anthropic suspend public access to Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 over national security concerns. According to the reports, the White House's Office of the National Cyber Director and Office of Science and Technology Policy asked OpenAI to limit GPT-5.6's rollout while the administration develops a framework for evaluating advanced AI models before wider deployment. Sources familiar with the discussions reportedly said the request was driven by GPT-5.6's "Mythos-like" capabilities rather than a broader shift in AI policy. The request follows President Trump's executive order earlier this month directing federal agencies to establish a voluntary testing framework for advanced AI systems before release, after weeks of internal debate over how the program should be structured. The move also reflects a shift in the relationship between leading AI builders and Washington after years of developers calling for the government to establish regulations for the industry. During Senate testimony in 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman urged lawmakers to establish a regulatory agency for advanced AI systems, arguing that independent oversight would eventually be necessary. More recently, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei argued that the most capable AI models should undergo rigorous government-backed evaluations before deployment because of their potential to enable sophisticated cyberattacks, biological weapons research, and other national security threats. Those arguments have become increasingly formalized as Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google have each published proposals outlining how frontier AI should be governed. While they differ in their approaches, all three call for structured evaluations of the most capable models, greater transparency around safety testing, independent review of high-risk systems, and a larger role for the government in overseeing AI development. The administration's intervention may also test whether the governance frameworks championed by leading AI companies can be applied evenly across the industry. Critics warn that if the largest AI developers help shape rules that are then enforced unevenly, then frontier AI regulation could become a form of regulatory capture that favors a select group of companies while making it harder for competitors to compete.

OpenAI limits ChatGPT 5.6 access to government-approved users first

OpenAI plans to stagger the release of its new AI model, ChatGPT 5.6, beginning with government-approved customers, according to a memo from CEO Sam Altman. Federal leaders will approve access to selected customers during this preview period, with a more general release anticipated a "couple of weeks later." Altman stated in the memo that OpenAI prefers not to follow this approval model in the long term and aims to establish a sustainable approach in collaboration with the government for future releases. Several federal agencies are directing this change, including the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, as well as involvement from Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The White House and the Office of the National Cyber Director did not respond to requests for comment regarding these developments. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring AI companies to engage in a voluntary federal review of powerful models before public release. The government plans to create a framework to standardize assessments of new AI models. In a related situation, OpenAI competitor Anthropic disabled access to two of its recent models following a federal directive that did not specify security concerns but indicated a desire to prevent foreign nationals from accessing its tools. This recent directive and OpenAI's adjusted rollout plans have generated confusion regarding the review process and the nature of voluntary participation in the federal review for AI models.

OpenAI limits release of new model under pressure from US

OpenAI is rolling out a preview version of a more capable new artificial intelligence model to select partners before making it available more widely in the coming weeks, following pressure from the Trump administration to stagger the release. The ChatGPT maker said on Friday (Saturday AEST) that it's introducing the GPT-5.6 model series to a small group of trusted partners whose names have been approved by the US government. The limited release came at the Trump administration's request, OpenAI said.

OpenAI Limits Its Newest ChatGPT Product to Trump-Approved Customers During Cybersecurity Review

ChatGPT maker OpenAI said Friday it is restricting the release of its new artificial intelligence model at the request of President Donald Trump's administration, the latest in an unprecedented government vetting of AI products that could pose cybersecurity risks. OpenAI said its new AI product, called GPT-5.6 Sol, would only be available for now to a "small group of trusted partners" approved by the Trump administration. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," OpenAI said in a statement. The company said it viewed the testing period as a temporary step on the "path to broader availability in the coming weeks." OpenAI's staggered release of a powerful new AI system follows actions the government took earlier this month against OpenAI rival Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot. Anthropic took offline two new AI models, known as Fable 5 and Mythos 5, just days after publicly releasing them to comply with a Trump directive blocking their use by foreign nationals. Officials have grown increasingly concerned since Anthropic warned earlier this year that its Mythos model was adept at finding flaws in software in a way that could be weaponized by malicious hackers and threaten critical computer networks around the world. Trump earlier in June signed an executive order on AI oversight that established a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to 30 days before their public release. The order described participation by AI developers as voluntary but the framework has not yet been fully developed. OpenAI said its new Sol model "is better at helping people find and fix vulnerabilities" than it is at carrying out cyberattacks and does not cross the company's own risk threshold. But it acknowledged there could be unforeseen risks especially if its model is combined with other tools. "That uncertainty, along with the model's broader step change in capabilities, is why we are pairing the model's increased capabilities with stronger safeguards and a phased release," the company said Friday.

OpenAI slow rolls new model release at 'request' of government

OpenAI announced Friday it will preview its newest GPT-5.6 model series with only a group of partners before a public rollout, at the behest of the U.S. government. The ChatGPT maker said it previewed the plans and capabilities of GPT-5.6's Sol, Terra and Luna with the government, and at the request of Washington, will start with a "small group of trusted partners" before a broader release in the coming weeks. The partners' participation has been shared with the government, OpenAI said. The news comes after The Information first reported the Trump administration asked OpenAI to stagger the release of its new model over cybersecurity concerns, citing a memo from CEO Sam Altman. OpenAI reiterated Altman's memo, writing in a release, "During this preview, we will continue testing and coordinating closely with partners as we work toward broader availability." "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default. It keeps the best tools from users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders, and global partners who need them," OpenAI wrote. The firm called it a "short-term step," writing, "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." Amid growing concerns about the cybersecurity risks of newer AI models, President Trump signed an order earlier this month laying out a voluntary testing process in which AI labs can provide the government with their models up to 30 days ahead of release to test for certain risks. While the Trump administration emphasized testing was not mandatory, some predicted at the time these assurances would not be enough. This is not the first delay since the order was signed. Earlier this month, the Trump administration sent OpenAI's competitor, Anthropic, a directive to pull its newest Fable and Mythos model over security concerns. Anthropic disabled the models within hours of receiving a federal export control requiring it to block foreign nationals from using them. The move sparked intense backlash from AI policy advocates who warned the move signaled the White House is taking an "ad hoc" approach to AI regulation that could hurt innovation and set a dangerous precedent for how much influence the government can have on AI model releases. Similar criticism emerged this week over the White House's latest request to OpenAI. Dean Ball, a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, wrote on X that "in a matter of weeks, U.S. federal AI policy has gone from implausibly libertarian to increasingly draconian and opaque." When Trump signed his EO earlier this month, Ball said it was "really establishing a de facto involuntary licensing/preapproval regime for frontier models." Ball was a co-author of Trump's AI Action Plan, released last year.

OpenAI unveils GPT-5.6 AI models with phased rollout and stronger safety checks

OpenAI has unveiled GPT-5.6, its latest AI model family with Sol, Terra and Luna. The models will roll out gradually across ChatGPT, the API and Codex, with Sol adding Max and Ultra modes for advanced reasoning. OpenAI has introduced GPT-5.6, its latest generation of artificial intelligence (AI) models. Instead of launching a single model, the company has released a family of three models, Sol, Terra and Luna, designed for different levels of performance, speed and cost. However, unlike previous launches, GPT-5.6 is not yet available to all users. The company is rolling it out first to a small group of trusted partners before making it available more broadly through ChatGPT, the API and Codex. OpenAI's new AI models and their capabilities: The flagship model, GPT-5.6 Sol, is designed for tasks that require deeper reasoning and problem-solving. OpenAI says it performs better than its earlier models across areas such as coding, biology and cybersecurity. The company has also introduced a new "Max" mode, which allows the model to spend more time thinking before generating an answer. Another addition is "Ultra" mode, which uses multiple AI agents working together to solve more complex problems that would be difficult for a single model to handle. Alongside Sol, OpenAI has launched GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-5.6 Luna. Terra is aimed at users who need strong performance at a lower cost, with OpenAI claiming it offers capabilities close to GPT-5.5 while costing roughly half as much. On the other hand, Luna is the smallest and fastest model in the family and is designed for applications that need quick responses and can process large numbers of requests efficiently. Why OpenAI is limiting ChatGPT-5.6 access: OpenAI says GPT-5.6 comes with stronger safety checks. The models are designed to reject harmful cyber requests, while monitoring systems can review, delay or block risky responses. OpenAI says the safeguards are meant to help researchers find software flaws without enabling misuse. One of the biggest differences with this release is how OpenAI is making it available. The company says it limited the initial rollout after discussions with the US government about the safe deployment of advanced AI systems. As part of the preview, access has been restricted to a small number of organisations whose participation has been shared with government officials. OpenAI has said it does not expect this process to become the standard for future launches, but agreed to the temporary arrangement while broader policies around frontier AI are developed. Despite its improved capabilities, OpenAI says GPT-5.6 still has several limitations. According to the company, the internal testing showed that the model is better at identifying software vulnerabilities than carrying out complete cyberattacks on its own. The additional safety systems may also make the model refuse more requests or respond more slowly than earlier versions. The release of GPT-5.6 reflects a major transformation in the AI industry. Companies are no longer focused only on making models smarter and more capable. They are also placing greater emphasis on controlling how these systems are deployed and reducing the risks of misuse. OpenAI's phased rollout and added safeguards suggest a more cautious approach to releasing its most advanced models.

Meet Soul, Terra, and Luna: the GPT-5.6 Models Restricted to Trusted Organizations

OpenAI's latest release, GPT-5.6 Sol, introduces three specialized models, Soul, Terra and Luna, each tailored to distinct use cases. From the cybersecurity-focused Soul to the cost-efficient Luna, these models showcase advancements in performance and efficiency, such as improved token utilization and real-time monitoring capabilities. However, as Universe of AI highlights, access to these systems is tightly restricted, with availability limited to select organizations and government partners. This exclusivity reflects OpenAI's cautious approach to mitigating risks while refining the models for broader, responsible deployment. Explore the implications of these access restrictions and gain insight into the safety measures underpinning GPT-5.6, including automated red-teaming and identity verification protocols. Understand how these safeguards align with OpenAI's collaboration with the US government and its phased rollout strategy. Additionally, this feature examines the growing role of open source alternatives, such as GLM 5.5 and their potential to provide widespread access to AI technology amidst debates on fairness and accessibility. Exploring the Models: Soul, Terra and Luna The GPT-5.6 series is designed to cater to a wide range of needs through its three distinct models, each tailored to specific use cases: * Soul: As the flagship model, Soul is optimized for cybersecurity and agentic tasks. It excels in identifying and neutralizing advanced cyber threats, making it a critical tool for high-security environments such as government agencies and financial institutions. * Terra: A versatile, general-purpose model, Terra is designed for adaptability and performance. It is ideal for tasks such as content generation, data analysis and customer service, offering a balanced solution for organizations with diverse operational needs. * Luna: The most cost-efficient option in the series, Luna prioritizes affordability and speed. It is particularly suited for small businesses and organizations with limited budgets that still require reliable AI capabilities for routine tasks. These models represent a significant step forward in AI technology, but their availability is currently limited to a select group of users, sparking debates about accessibility and fairness. Understanding the Restricted Access OpenAI has implemented stringent access controls for the GPT-5.6 models, limiting their use to trusted organizations within the United States and a small group of international partners. This decision stems from concerns about potential misuse, particularly in sensitive domains like cybersecurity, where the stakes are exceptionally high. To ensure responsible deployment, OpenAI is working closely with the US government. This collaboration underscores the importance of aligning AI development with national security priorities and ethical standards. By restricting access, OpenAI aims to mitigate risks while refining the models for broader use. Although OpenAI has expressed intentions to expand access globally, no definitive timeline has been provided. The rollout is expected to follow a phased approach, beginning with trusted organizations, then extending to US residents and eventually reaching international users. This cautious strategy reflects OpenAI's commitment to balancing innovation with safety. Here are additional guides from our expansive article library that you may find useful on ChatGPT 5. Prioritizing Safety and Risk Mitigation Safety remains a cornerstone of OpenAI's approach to deploying the GPT-5.6 series. The company has invested over 700,000 GPU hours in training and testing these models to ensure their reliability and security. This rigorous process has resulted in the implementation of robust safeguards designed to prevent misuse and enhance accountability. Key safety measures include: * Automated Red-Teaming: Continuous stress testing is conducted to identify vulnerabilities, such as attempts to bypass safeguards or exploit the models for harmful purposes. * Real-Time Monitoring: Outputs are monitored in real time, with flagged activities undergoing account-level reviews to prevent malicious applications. * Identity Verification: Future updates are expected to introduce stricter identity verification protocols, further enhancing accountability and reducing the risk of misuse. These measures highlight OpenAI's proactive approach to addressing the ethical and practical challenges associated with deploying advanced AI systems. Performance and Efficiency: Setting New Standards The GPT-5.6 models establish new benchmarks in both performance and efficiency. For example, the Soul model has demonstrated exceptional capabilities in cybersecurity, outperforming competitors such as Anthropic's Mythos in detecting and mitigating sophisticated threats. In addition to their technical prowess, the GPT-5.6 models are designed with token efficiency in mind. They deliver more output per token compared to earlier versions and rival systems, reducing operational costs while maintaining high-quality results. This efficiency makes the models particularly appealing for organizations seeking to maximize their return on investment in AI technology. The Role of Open source Alternatives The restricted access to GPT-5.6 has reignited interest in open source AI models, which offer a more accessible alternative to proprietary systems. Developers and organizations are increasingly exploring options like GLM 5.5, which aim to rival proprietary models in both performance and usability. Open source AI provides several key advantages: * Transparency: Users can examine and modify the underlying code, fostering trust and allowing innovation. * Accessibility: Open source models are available to a broader audience, providing widespread access to access to advanced AI technology. * Community Collaboration: Open source projects benefit from collective expertise, accelerating development and addressing a wide range of use cases. As open source AI continues to evolve, it may offer viable alternatives to proprietary models like GPT-5.6, particularly for organizations and individuals seeking greater flexibility and inclusivity. Community Perspectives and Future Directions The release of GPT-5.6 has elicited a range of reactions from the AI community. While many experts commend the technical advancements and potential applications of the models, others express concern over the restricted access. Critics argue that limiting such powerful tools to a select few stifles innovation and exacerbates inequalities within the AI ecosystem. Looking ahead, OpenAI plans to gradually expand access to GPT-5.6, with future updates expected to include enhanced safety features such as stricter identity verification protocols. These measures aim to ensure responsible use while addressing concerns about exclusivity. At the same time, the growing interest in open source AI suggests a shift toward more inclusive and collaborative approaches to AI development. This trend highlights the importance of balancing proprietary innovation with the need for accessibility and community-driven progress. Balancing Innovation, Safety and Accessibility The GPT-5.6 series represents a significant milestone in AI development, offering unparalleled capabilities in cybersecurity, general-purpose tasks and cost-effective applications. However, its restricted availability underscores the ongoing challenges of balancing technological advancement with safety and accessibility. As OpenAI continues to navigate these complexities, the future of AI will likely depend on finding the right equilibrium between proprietary innovation and open source alternatives. For now, GPT-5.6 remains a powerful yet exclusive tool, accessible only to a select group of users, leaving the broader AI community to speculate on its potential impact. Media Credit: Universe of AI Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.

OpenAI Drops GPT-5.6 'Sol,' Calls It The Strongest Model Yet As AI Arms Race Escalates

The initial rollout is restricted to a small group of vetted partners, with participation already shared with the U.S. government, the company said in a blog post. Access is being delivered first through the API and Codex. OpenAI said the approach is meant to be temporary, arguing that long-term government gating shouldn't become the default because it slows access for developers, enterprises, and cyber defenders but it sees the current structure as a necessary step while broader cyber policy frameworks are still being shaped. At the top end, GPT-5.6 Sol is positioned as the flagship model, adding new reasoning controls like a "max effort" setting and an "ultra" mode that can deploy subagents for more complex workflows. OpenAI highlighted strong benchmark results across coding, biology, and cybersecurity tasks, including performance on Terminal-Bench 2.1 and GeneBench v1. On the security front, the company says Sol is better at spotting and fixing software vulnerabilities than carrying out full exploit chains. In testing across browsers like Chromium and Firefox, it was able to surface bugs and exploit components, but didn't independently produce end-to-end working exploits under the conditions evaluated. OpenAI also outlined a layered safety system combining training, real-time monitoring during outputs, account-level signals, and tiered access controls. During the preview, some prompts may be slowed or blocked for extra review as the company fine-tunes false positives ahead of wider release. Behind the scenes, OpenAI says it has logged more than 700,000 A100-equivalent GPU hours on automated red-teaming to probe jailbreaks, alongside external expert testing. It also described a rapid patch cycle to reproduce newly discovered jailbreak methods and fold fixes into future evaluations. Separately, GPT-5.6 Sol is slated to come to Cerebras in July, with throughput of up to 750 tokens per second, though access will start limited as capacity ramps. After the preview phase, OpenAI expects broader availability through ChatGPT, Codex, and its API. This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

New AI Models are Making Governments Nervous

The new AI (artificial intelligence) models coming to the market are making governments nervous. Just take Anthropic first, and then OpenAI as a second example. For the unaware, the US (United States) government asked Anthropic to actually pull back the Fable 5 model globally. What's more is that Anthropic had cut down the capabilities of Mythos 5 and put in more restrictions and then offer it as Fable 5 globally. Yet, the US government did not allow this to happen. This just showcases how powerful AI models are getting, and just how, AI is not just about business and distribution anymore. It has literally become about national security. * Make Telecom Talk My Trusted Source Now let's take a look at what's happening with OpenAI. The company will likely not release its latest AI model - GPT 5.6 in the same way it has released AI models before. Instead, the company will only offer it to a select group of partners because the US government directed it to, said a report from The Information. The Trump administration will be literally granting permission to OpenAI on a case by case basis to whom the company can distribute its latest AI model. So the GPT 5.6 will have a limited release. The report said that Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI believes that if the limited release goes well, they will be able to share it with the public. Anthropic and OpenAI are arguably the two largest AI companies in the world. The government's involvement on the AI models marks a significant shift in Trump Administration's approach of being hands-off from the AI sector. This will likely be done by other countries as well. AI can be used for warfare, strategies, and more. At present, the best AI model from Anthropic which is available for the market globally is Claude Opus 4.8. This model can also be accessed by people who have purchased a subscription to the platform.

Trump administration asks OpenAI to limit release of GPT-5.6: Report

Per the report, the White House's Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy requested that the model be released first to a small set of government-approved partners rather than the general public. The Trump administration has asked OpenAI to limit the release of its next large language model, GPT-5.6, citing security concerns, according to a report by Axios. Per the report, the White House's Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy requested that the model be released first to a small set of government-approved partners rather than the general public. This is part of the administration's broader effort to build a framework for testing and monitoring new AI models and their security. Also Read: OpenAI provided GPT-5.5 to US for national security testing, executive said Sources cited in the report said this is the first time the US government has asked an AI company to restrict a model's launch before it has happened. This also comes close on the heels of the government asking Anthropic to suspend access to its powerful Mythos and Fable 5 models for non-US citizens. According to The Information, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees in a memo that the company has clarified to the government that such intervention is not desirable for the long term, andit will work with relevant stakeholders for a more sustainable approach for future releases. Also Read: OpenAI offers $25,000 to anyone who can jailbreak its latest model GPT-5.5 This move by the government came due to the model's Mythos-like abilities, Axios said. It also follows an executive order on AI security that President Donald Trump signed earlier in June, which directs agencies to set up a voluntary pre-release testing protocol. Anthropic's suspension of the models has thrown up a lot of questions around the high global dependence on a handful of AI companies. Experts in India have called for the development of sovereign models, ET reported on June 26, noting that such restrictions expose a vulnerability in India's AI ambitions. As access to frontier AI increasingly becomes a geopolitical issue, experts argue India will need significantly greater investments in research, compute infrastructure, and domestic AI capabilities if it wants a meaningful role in shaping the next phase of the global AI race.

OpenAI Restricts Access to Latest AI Models at US Government Request | PYMNTS.com

The AI startup previewed the models' capabilities as part of its ongoing engagement with the government, limited the release of the models at the government's request, and shared with the government the identities of the trusted partners to which it released the models, it said in a Friday (June 26) blog post. During the preview, OpenAI will continue testing and coordinating with the partners and will work toward releasing the models more broadly. The company plans to make the models generally available within weeks, according to the post. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," OpenAI said in the post. "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 repeatable process for future model releases," the company said. OpenAI describes the three GPT-5.6 models as follows: Sol is the flagship model that is the company's strongest model yet in terms of agentic capabilities in coding, biology and cybersecurity; Terra is a balanced model for everyday work that performs similarly to GPT-5.5 at half the cost; and Luna is a fast and affordable model that that brings strong capability at the lowest cost offered by the company. It was reported June 5 that OpenAI's head of countries, George Osborne, said OpenAI would allow the U.S. government to assess the capabilities of its AI models before the company releases them. Osborne said the company would comply with the executive order signed June 2 by President Donald Trump, which created a voluntary process for AI companies to provide access to their models. "It's quite right that democratic governments have a big role to play in how this technology is used and deployed," Osborne said. Rival AI startup Anthropic disabled access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models on June 12 in response to a U.S. government export control directive that cited "national security authorities" and called on the company to suspend access to those models by "any foreign national." "Our understanding is that the government believes it has become aware of a method of bypassing, or 'jailbreaking' Fable 5," Anthropic said at the time. For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.

OpenAI Introduces ChatGPT 5.6 Soul, Terra and Luna Models

OpenAI has introduced GPT 5.6, a release featuring three specialized models, Soul, Terra and Luna, tailored for different use cases. Soul uses its "Soul Ultra" mode to handle complex reasoning tasks, Terra offers a versatile option for general-purpose applications and Luna is optimized for high-speed, large-scale operations. According to AI Grid, these models not only surpass competitors like Claude Mythos 5 in benchmarks such as Terminal Bench but also prompt discussions around cybersecurity risks and ethical considerations due to their advanced functionalities. Explore the performance benchmarks of GPT 5.6, including a 40% cost reduction enabled by Cerebras chip integration. Learn how OpenAI is addressing regulatory challenges by limiting access to these models and collaborating with government agencies to mitigate risks like hallucinations and unintended outputs. This feature also examines the balance OpenAI is striking between advancing AI capabilities and making sure responsible deployment. Breaking Down the GPT 5.6 Variants The GPT 5.6 series is designed to cater to a wide range of use cases, with each variant offering unique capabilities: * GPT 5.6 Soul: The most advanced model in the lineup, Soul is built for complex reasoning and problem-solving tasks. It introduces the innovative "Soul Ultra" mode, which uses sub-agents to execute intricate operations with exceptional efficiency, making it ideal for high-stakes decision-making and advanced research. * GPT 5.6 Terra: Positioned as the all-purpose option, Terra strikes a balance between computational complexity and processing speed. Its versatility makes it suitable for a variety of general-use applications, from content generation to data analysis. * GPT 5.6 Luna: Designed for high-speed, high-volume tasks, Luna excels in scenarios requiring rapid token processing and scalability. This model is particularly effective in data-intensive operations, such as real-time analytics and large-scale automation. These models outperform competitors like Claude Mythos 5 and Claude Fable 5 in key benchmarks, including Terminal Bench (real-world command-line tasks) and Exploit Bench (software exploitation capabilities). However, their advanced functionality also introduces challenges, such as unintended behaviors and the potential for benchmark manipulation, which require careful oversight. Performance Benchmarks: Achievements and Limitations The GPT 5.6 models redefine performance standards in artificial intelligence, particularly in terms of speed and cost efficiency. By integrating advanced Cerebras chips, these models achieve token processing speeds of up to 750 tokens per second, a notable improvement over previous iterations. This technological leap results in a 40% reduction in operational costs compared to competitors like Anthropic's Mythos 5, making GPT 5.6 a cost-effective solution for businesses and researchers alike. Despite these advancements, challenges persist. One of the most pressing issues is the occurrence of hallucinations, where the AI generates inaccurate or fabricated information. This problem underscores the importance of making sure that outputs are grounded in verified data to maintain reliability. Additionally, unintended actions, such as deleting virtual machines or misrepresenting research findings, highlight the complexities of autonomous AI behavior and the need for robust safeguards. Enhance your knowledge on ChatGPT 5 by exploring a selection of articles and guides on the subject. Cybersecurity and Bio-research Risks The advanced capabilities of GPT 5.6 bring both opportunities and risks, particularly in the realms of cybersecurity and bio-research. These models possess the ability to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in software systems, which could pose significant threats to critical infrastructure if misused. In the bio-research domain, their capacity to analyze pathogens and virology surpasses expert thresholds, raising concerns about potential misuse in bioterrorism or unauthorized scientific research. To mitigate these risks, OpenAI has implemented strict access controls, limiting the availability of GPT 5.6 to a controlled preview. The company is also actively collaborating with the U.S. government and other regulatory bodies to establish comprehensive safeguards. These measures aim to ensure compliance with ethical and legal standards while minimizing the potential for misuse. Ethical and Regulatory Challenges The release of GPT 5.6 highlights the ongoing tension between technological innovation and regulatory oversight. OpenAI's decision to restrict access reflects a deliberate effort to prioritize safety and ethical responsibility. However, this approach raises broader questions about the accessibility of innovative AI technologies and their potential societal impact. One emerging trend in the AI industry is "benchmark minimizing," where developers intentionally limit a model's performance to avoid surpassing regulatory thresholds. While this strategy may help align innovation with compliance, it also introduces new challenges in balancing technological progress with ethical considerations. The implications of such practices could shape the future trajectory of AI development, influencing how advanced systems are designed and deployed. Looking Ahead: The Future of AI Development GPT 5.6 represents a pivotal moment in the evolution of artificial intelligence, offering unparalleled capabilities in reasoning, speed and efficiency. However, its release also underscores the complexities of navigating the intersection of innovation, safety and ethics. As OpenAI continues to collaborate with regulatory bodies, the broader deployment of these models remains uncertain. The regulatory landscape will play a crucial role in determining how advanced AI technologies are developed, accessed and integrated into society. By addressing the challenges of safety, ethical responsibility and accessibility, the AI community has the opportunity to shape a future where innovation and societal well-being coexist harmoniously. GPT 5.6 serves as both a milestone and a reminder of the responsibilities that come with technological progress. Media Credit: TheAIGRID Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.

After Anthropic Showdown, Trump Administration Presses OpenAI To Limit GPT-5.6 Release: Report

The Trump administration has reportedly asked OpenAI to limit the distribution of its forthcoming model, GPT-5.6, to a select group of government-approved partners, citing potential security risks. In the memo, Altman said that they had made it clear to the U.S. government that this was not their preferred long-term model and that they would work with the government and others in the industry to achieve a more sustainable approach for future releases. Another report by Axios indicated that Altman spoke with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about GPT-5.6 on Wednesday. The publication reported that the government's intervention was driven by GPT-5.6's "Mythos-like" capabilities, rather than any broader shift toward increased government oversight. A source said the administration is focused on ensuring companies implement adequate safeguards for highly advanced AI models of that caliber. OpenAI and the White House did not immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comments. Trump's AI Crackdown Expands The move follows growing concerns about advanced AI misuse and the Trump administration's clash with Anthropic, which disabled access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models after being directed to block foreign nationals from using them earlier this month. Later, President Donald Trump said he initially viewed Anthropic as a potential national security risk but now believes the AI startup acted responsibly after complying with a U.S. directive to restrict access to its most advanced AI models. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Image via Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

GPT-5.6 Is Here: OpenAI Names Its New AI Models Sol, Terra and Luna

Solana mocked the launch with "Sam Altcoinman," a viral jab at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. OpenAI launched the GPT-5.6 model family on June 26, introducing three tiers under names that, intentionally or not, landed squarely in crypto cultural territory. GPT-5.6 Sol is the flagship, described as the most capable model in the family, priced at $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens. GPT-5.6 Terra is the mid-range option at $2.50 input and $15 output. GPT-5.6 Luna is the fastest and most cost-efficient at $1 input and $6 output. The family targets software engineering, computer use, professional knowledge work, scientific research, and cybersecurity. Access during the preview period runs through the OpenAI API and Codex, limited to a small group of trusted partners and organizations whose participation was shared with the US government before the preview launched. ChatGPT does not get access during the preview. General availability across ChatGPT, Codex, and the API is planned for the coming weeks with no confirmed date. The pricing structure introduces a new caching model. Cache writes are billed at 1.25 times the uncached input rate. Cache reads receive a 90% discount. A 30-minute minimum cache life and explicit cache breakpoints make the economics more predictable for high-volume enterprise deployments than prior OpenAI models. Solana's Two-Word Joke Stole the Spotlight Before most people had finished reading OpenAI's announcement, the crypto community had already found its favorite moment. Solana's official X account responded with just two words: "Sam Altcoinman." The joke landed instantly. "SOL" is the ticker of Solana's native token, while Terra and Luna are inseparable from the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in 2022, one of the biggest failures in crypto history. The implosion wiped out roughly $40 billion in market value and helped trigger a broader contagion that contributed to the bankruptcies of Celsius, Three Arrows Capital, and Voyager. OpenAI almost certainly chose the names for their astronomical meaning: the Sun, Earth, and Moon. But to anyone in crypto, they carry a very different association. The government coordination angle that nobody else is highlighting The detail in OpenAI's launch documentation that has received the least attention is also the most structurally significant. The preview was deliberately sequenced in coordination with the US government, specifically to allow a trusted partner cohort to access the models before broader public release, giving government stakeholders time to assess capabilities in dual-use areas before general availability. The documentation explicitly states that requests in biological and cybersecurity work may trigger real-time safety checks that slow or block responses, and that layered safeguards run at both the model level and the infrastructure level. This is the most direct public acknowledgment to date that OpenAI's frontier models are being previewed in a framework that treats national security screening as a prerequisite for public launch rather than a concurrent process. For crypto and Web3 developers, the launch raises a broader question than model performance. GPT-5.6 is debuting through a tightly controlled rollout, first to a small group of government-coordinated trusted partners before expanding more widely. That approach stands in sharp contrast to the permissionless ethos that underpins much of the crypto industry. Whether GPT-5.6 Sol eventually powers onchain AI agents, DeFi automation, trading systems, or oracle infrastructure will depend not only on OpenAI's rollout timeline, but also on whether developers building open networks embrace software released through a controlled access model. Solana summed up the moment with two words: "Sam Altcoinman." Behind the joke was a broader point about the growing intersection of AI and crypto.

What is OpenAI's GPT-5.6? Here's why the Trump Administration wants to limit its release

OpenAI's upcoming AI model, reportedly GPT-5.6, faces a restricted rollout at the U.S. government's request. Citing national security concerns, the Trump administration wants to evaluate its potential for cyberattacks and sensitive research before wider access. This marks a significant shift, treating advanced AI as a strategic asset. OpenAI intends to cooperate with the evaluation, aiming for eventual public release. OpenAI's next flagship artificial intelligence model, widely referred to as GPT-5.6, is already generating significant attention, even before its official launch. While OpenAI has yet to formally announce the model or publish technical specifications, multiple reports indicate that the company is preparing a limited release after the Trump administration requested additional oversight before wider public access. Rather than restricting exports after a model is released, US officials are said to have asked OpenAI to slow the rollout itself, citing national security risks associated with increasingly powerful frontier AI systems. What is GPT-5.6?OpenAI has not officially announced GPT-5.6 or published its technical specifications. However, AI Weekly, citing sources familiar with the company's roadmap, reported that OpenAI internally describes GPT-5.6 as a "meaningful improvement" over GPT-5.5 rather than an incremental update. According to FindSkill.ai, GPT-5.6 is rumored to process much longer documents at once, deliver more accurate reasoning with fewer factual errors, and complete complex multi-step tasks more efficiently. Reports also suggest faster responses and a more natural conversational style. The publication also speculated that the model could support longer context windows and more advanced autonomous workflows. However, these features remain unconfirmed, as OpenAI has not publicly verified them. Why does the Trump administration want to limit GPT-5.6's release?According to reporting by Axios, Reuters, The Information and CNN, the Trump administration asked OpenAI to initially release GPT-5.6 only to a small group of government-approved organizations rather than making it broadly available immediately. The request reportedly originated from the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) as the government develops a broader framework for evaluating advanced AI systems before public deployment. Instead of a global launch, early access would reportedly be granted on a customer-by-customer basis during an initial preview period. This is believed to be the first time the U.S. government has sought to limit the rollout of a frontier AI model before its public release. The real reason: National security, not censorshipThe administration's reported concerns extend beyond misinformation or consumer safety. Officials are increasingly focused on how cutting-edge AI systems could assist in sophisticated cyberattacks, automate vulnerability discovery, accelerate biological or chemical research, or be exploited by hostile foreign governments. As frontier AI models become capable of solving increasingly complex technical problems, policymakers worry that unrestricted access could allow malicious actors to use them for offensive cyber operations or to accelerate sensitive research. According to reports, the White House wants additional time to evaluate GPT-5.6's capabilities before authorizing broader deployment. What has OpenAI said?OpenAI has not officially confirmed GPT-5.6 or announced a release date. However, Axios reported that CEO Sam Altman told employees the company intends to cooperate with the government's evaluation process while ultimately working toward a broader public release. Neither OpenAI nor the White House has publicly disclosed how long any limited-access period might last, and the company has not commented on the technical capabilities that have been reported by AI-focused publications.

US wants OpenAI to delay GPT-5.6 rollout after Mythos suspension

The White House has reportedly asked OpenAI to limit the initial release of its upcoming GPT-5.6 model over safety concerns, marking the latest sign of increasing US government involvement in the launch of advanced AI systems, according to an article published in The Information. OpenAI plans to make GPT-5.6 available only to a small group of partners during an initial preview, with CEO Sam Altman reportedly telling employees that the government would approve access "customer by customer." If the rollout proceeds smoothly, the company expects a wider release a few weeks later. Anthropic order set the precedent: The reported move comes just weeks after the US government ordered Anthropic to suspend access to its flagship AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for all foreign nationals worldwide under an export control directive issued on June 12. Anthropic complied with the order but disputed its basis. The company said the government cited concerns over a possible jailbreak that could bypass the models' safety protections but provided only "verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak". Anthropic argued that the reported technique exposed only limited, previously known vulnerabilities and said similar capabilities were available in other frontier models, including OpenAI's GPT-5.5. Directive now faces legal challenge: The order has since become the subject of a legal challenge. On June 23, legal technology company Legion LegalTech sued the US government, arguing that existing export-control laws do not cover hosted AI models or their outputs. The lawsuit also claims the government exceeded its legal authority, improperly used emergency powers, and imposed a blanket restriction without a valid statutory basis. Legion is seeking to have the directive declared unlawful and blocked. Part of a broader technology rivalry: The developments come amid a wider technology rivalry between the US and China. In recent years, the US has tightened export controls on advanced AI chips to China, while Beijing has responded with restrictions on exports of rare earth materials that are critical to global technology supply chains. More recently, China also blocked Meta's reported partnership with Manus. Against this backdrop, governments are increasingly treating oversight of frontier AI models as another front in the broader contest over strategic technologies. AI as a strategic asset: Writing about Anthropic's Mythos model before the US restrictions were imposed, MediaNama founder Nikhil Pahwa argued that the technology has implications beyond cybersecurity. "A model that can find and exploit zero-days at scale is not only a defensive tool. It is a strategic capability that militaries will want," he wrote. He added that "this is like cyber-nuclear power. Can be used for good (improve software/produce electricity) or destruction (cyberattacks/nuclear weapons)." Pahwa also noted that Anthropic had itself linked the technology to geopolitical competition, writing: "Strategic technologies do not distribute their benefits evenly, even when their risks are universal." Referring to Anthropic's own statements, he observed that "the US and its allies must maintain a decisive lead in AI technology," adding that "the strategic benefit flows first to the US and its allies." Together, the OpenAI review, the Anthropic restrictions, and the legal challenge show that governments are increasingly treating frontier AI models not just as commercial products but as technologies with national security and geopolitical significance.

OpenAI limits its latest ChatGPT product to Trump-approved customers during cybersecurity review

ChatGPT maker OpenAI said Friday it is restricting the release of its new artificial intelligence model at the request of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, the latest in an unprecedented government vetting of AI products that could pose cybersecurity risks. OpenAI said its new AI product, called GPT-5.6 Sol, would only be available for now to a "small group of trusted partners" approved by the Trump administration. "We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default," OpenAI said in a statement. The company said it viewed the testing period as a temporary step on the "path to broader availability in the coming weeks." OpenAI's staggered release of a powerful new AI system follows actions the government took earlier this month against OpenAI rival Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot. Anthropic took offline two new AI models, known as Fable 5 and Mythos 5, just days after unveiling them to comply with a Trump directive blocking their use by foreign nationals. The White House said Friday it continues to collaborate with frontier AI labs on addressing the challenges of scaling the fast-growing technology. Officials have grown increasingly concerned since Anthropic warned earlier this year that its Mythos model was adept at finding software flaws in a way that could be weaponized by malicious hackers and threaten critical computer networks around the world. New, powerful AI models have drawn White House scrutiny Trump earlier in June signed an executive order on AI oversight that established a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to 30 days before their public release. The order described participation by AI developers as voluntary but the framework has not yet been fully developed. Some of Trump's allies have laid blame on San Francisco-based Anthropic and CEO Dario Amodei for the need for heightened government scrutiny. "Dario came to Washington a few months ago, back in April, and basically said that he had created a cyber weapon called Mythos," said investor David Sacks, who co-leads Trump's council of technology and science advisers, on a recent podcast. "And he spiked the cortisol level, got everyone really worried. And there was some truth to it in terms of the sense that this model had advanced cyber capabilities." OpenAI, also based in San Francisco, said its new Sol model (pronounced 'SOHL' like the Spanish word for sun) "is better at helping people find and fix vulnerabilities" than it is at carrying out cyberattacks and does not cross the company's own risk threshold. But it acknowledged there could be unforeseen risks especially if its model is combined with other tools. "That uncertainty, along with the model's broader step change in capabilities, is why we are pairing the model's increased capabilities with stronger safeguards and a phased release," the company said Friday. OpenAI hasn't named any of the roughly 20 customers that have been approved to use the new model so far. Critics warn that unpredictable government intervention can hold back U.S. companies U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan, a Massachusetts Democrat and co-author of a bipartisan bill that would regulate AI, said in a statement that she is concerned "the Trump administration is deciding company by company who gets access to the newest AI model. No law. No process. No oversight. Just appointees in Washington deciding who's in and who's out." A broad group of technology experts has also criticized the government's actions that led Anthropic to shut down Fable, which the company had pitched as a safer version of Mythos. It's now been unavailable for two weeks. "I just want to say that pretty much nobody in the cybersecurity industry believes that there's any factual basis for this action," Stanford University cybersecurity expert Alex Stamos said on a call with reporters earlier this week. Stamos, the chief product officer at AI security company Corridor and a former chief security officer at Facebook parent Meta, said he reviewed an analysis of research on Fable by Anthropic's primary cloud computing backer, Amazon, and didn't find any risks that aren't present with other publicly available AI models, including those made in China. "If the administration is honest about wanting the United States to beat China in this race, then this is about the dumbest thing they could possibly do," Stamos said. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spoke with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about the model release Wednesday, part of a series of negotiations in recent weeks between AI industry executives and Trump officials. Anthropic has also been part of those talks but Amodei has had a more contentious relationship with the Trump administration. The Pentagon designated Anthropic as a national security risk for raising ethical and safety concerns about AI usage in war, and Trump himself ordered federal agencies to stop using Claude. Anthropic responded with a lawsuit that is still working its way through federal courts.

OpenAI limits release of new AI model amid US request By Investing.com

Investing.com -- OpenAI said Friday it is releasing a preview version of its new GPT-5.6 artificial intelligence model to a small group of partners before a wider launch in the coming weeks. The limited rollout follows a request from the Trump administration to stagger the release. The ChatGPT maker said it is introducing the model series to trusted partners whose names received US government approval. OpenAI said the restricted release approach was made at the administration's request. The company said in a blog post that it does not believe this type of government access process should become standard practice long-term. OpenAI said the approach keeps advanced tools from users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders and global partners who need them. The company said it is taking this short-term step because it believes this is the best path to broader availability in the coming weeks. The model will initially be available to 20 partners, and one access path will be through Amazon.com Inc.'s Bedrock software platform. The government's role in the rollout adds to mounting pressure from the White House on AI developers. OpenAI competitor Anthropic PBC suspended its most capable models two weeks ago after the government ordered the company to restrict foreign nationals inside and outside the US from using the models, citing national security concerns. The most powerful of the three GPT-5.6 versions, called Sol, is designed to carry out coding, biology and cybersecurity tasks independently, the company said. OpenAI said it strengthened protections for higher-risk activity for its most advanced model, including around sensitive cyber requests. The company noted that no evaluation can represent every product configuration, multi-step attack or real-world workflow. OpenAI said it maintains a rapid-response process to reproduce, assess, prioritize and fix newly discovered jailbreaks, then adds them to ongoing evaluations to test against similar failures in the future. OpenAI said it hopes an executive order signed earlier this month by President Donald Trump may help clarify the process of releasing AI models in the future. The directive gave 60 days from the signing for the Trump administration and AI companies to develop a voluntary framework that includes giving the government access to frontier models for up to 30 days before planned release. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

OpenAI defers public rollout of GPT-5.6 as US seeks early access to frontier AI models

June 26 (Reuters) - OpenAI said on Friday it was delaying a full public launch of GPT-5.6 at the U.S. government's request, limiting the AI model's initial access to a small group of vetted partners whose details were shared with the authorities. The decision underscores growing concern in Washington over the national security risks posed by powerful AI systems, with policymakers pressing companies to put guardrails around them. By securing early access to frontier models, U.S. officials are aiming to identify threats ranging from cyberattacks to military misuse before the tools are widely deployed. OpenAI said in a blog post that the limited release was a temporary step as it works with Washington on a broader framework for future launches. The ChatGPT maker presented its plans and the models' capabilities to the government prior to the launch, it added. President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month establishing a voluntary framework for AI developers to offer "covered frontier models" to the U.S. government for up to 30 days before releasing them to trusted partners. "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," OpenAI said. The company said it would continue rigorous testing and close coordination with its partners as it prepares for a wider release, but cautioned that this level of government access and oversight should not become a permanent standard. It did not disclose the names of its partners. OpenAI, however, expressed concern that such a process would restrict access to advanced AI tools for users including developers, businesses, cybersecurity professionals and international partners who could benefit from them. At the center of the new lineup is GPT-5.6 Sol, the company's most advanced model yet, alongside mid-tier Terra and lower-cost Luna. (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

OpenAI unveils GPT 5.6 family of AI models, but you can't use them yet: Here is why

OpneAI says it has developed Sol, Terra and Luna with its "most robust safeguards to date." OpenAI has introduced the GPT 5.6 series, which includes three AI models: Sol, Luna and Terra. GPT 5.6 Sol is the company's most powerful model yet, Terra is a balanced model for everyday tasks, and Luna is a faster and more affordable option. The company says it has developed GPT 5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna with its "most robust safeguards to date." Unfortunately, general users cannot access these models yet. Instead of a public rollout, OpenAI is starting with a limited preview for a small group of trusted partners. According to the company, this decision was made because the US government requested an early preview before a wider launch. OpenAI says it still plans to make the GPT 5.6 family available through ChatGPT, the API and Codex in the coming weeks. OpenAI GPT 5.6 series: Capabilities OpenAI says GPT 5.6 Sol is its "strongest model" so far. The company also claims that Sol is its "most capable model yet for cybersecurity." It is said to offer improved agentic capabilities in coding, biology, and cybersecurity tasks. OpenAI claims the GPT 5.6 Sol AI model is better at helping people find and fix vulnerabilities without crossing its internal safety limits. The company is also introducing a new 'max' reasoning option, which allows Sol to spend more time solving difficult problems. Also, there is an 'ultra' mode that uses multiple AI sub-agents to complete complex tasks faster. Meanwhile, Terra offers performance similar to GPT 5.5 at half the price, and Luna is designed as the fastest and most affordable model in the new family. Also read: OpenAI says AI agents are already transforming how its employees work Why OpenAI GPT 5.6 models are not available to the public OpenAI confirmed that GPT 5.6 models are launching only as a limited preview. The company said it shared the models with the US government before release and, "at their request, we are starting with a limited preview for a small group of trusted partners before releasing more broadly." CEO Sam Altman also posted about the decision on X (formerly Twitter). Calling it the "bad news," he wrote, "At the request of the US government, it is launching today in limited preview instead of the open access launch we were planning on." "We are working with the government to get to general availability as fast as we can." Altman added that the gradual rollouts are a "quite reasonable" approach for increasingly capable AI systems, but said this "isn't quite the process that we think is optimal." He said the company is working with the government to create a transparent and reliable process so future AI models can reach users more quickly. OpenAI also said it does not want government previews to become the "long-term default." "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."

Like Anthropic, OpenAI may restrict GPT 5.6 access during initial rollout: Here is why

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly told employees that the government would be "approving access customer by customer" during the preview period. OpenAI may take a different approach with the launch of its upcoming AI model, GPT-5.6. Instead of making the model available to everyone, the company will reportedly give access only to a select group of close partners. According to a report by The Information, this is because the Trump administration has asked the AI company to do so. At a meeting this week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly told employees that the government would be "approving access customer by customer" during the preview period. He also reportedly said that if the early rollout goes smoothly, OpenAI hopes to expand access with a broader public release a "couple of weeks later." The report says OpenAI has been working closely with the US government ahead of the release. The agencies that asked for the limited rollout include the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Also read: Google reportedly postpones Gemini 3.5 Pro launch, here is why The move comes as the Trump administration has increased its focus on advanced AI systems. The administration had earlier supported a more hands off approach to AI regulation. But now, it has recently pushed for federal oversight. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order asking certain AI companies to voluntarily submit new AI models to the government for testing and evaluation before making them publicly available. If OpenAI follows this plan, it would be taking a path similar to Anthropic. Earlier this year, Anthropic introduced its cyber-focused AI model, Claude Mythos, but limited access to a small group of partners through a program called Project Glasswing. The company said the model was too powerful to release widely because it could be misused. Also read: GTA 6 pre orders now live: India price, benefits and other details One of the biggest concerns around powerful AI models is their ability to help with cyberattacks. Models designed for cybersecurity could become even more powerful. They may be able to find and exploit software vulnerabilities much faster than human researchers. Meanwhile, OpenAI announced a new version of GPT-5.5 Instant, the AI model that powers ChatGPT by default, earlier this week. The company said the latest version is smarter, better at understanding users, and more fun to talk to. The company also introduced Jalapeno, its first AI chip built for LLMs workloads.