AI & Models
OpenAI launches GPT-6.1 Sol, says it nears GPT-6 Astra at a fifth the cost
OpenAI launched GPT-6.1 Sol, which it says delivers nearly the same intelligence as GPT-6 Astra for agentic coding, computer use, and professional work, at one-fifth the standard token prices.
At OpenAI’s Dev Day event on Tuesday, the company showed off GPT-6.1 Sol, a mere week after it launched GPT-6 Sol. OpenAI says the new model delivers nearly the same level of intelligence as GPT-6 Astra for agentic coding, computer use, and professional work, at one-fifth the standard input and output token prices. Notably, the company is not launching GPT-6.1 Astra, as had originally been expected — The Wall Street Journal reported this week that OpenAI scrapped the release over safety concerns researchers raised during internal testing, after the model showed higher levels of deception and a tendency to move forward with tasks without asking the user for permission.
OpenAI says GPT-6.1 Sol delivers significant improvements over its predecessor, GPT-6 Sol, across complex tasks including programming and debugging, understanding documents, and executing multi-step workflows, and that on several of these fronts the model approaches GPT-6 Astra’s performance. The company also says the new model improves factual accuracy on difficult prompts: its largest gain over GPT-6 Sol comes at low reasoning effort, where the share of responses containing a factual error drops from 11.4% to 7.7%. Across all reasoning settings, OpenAI says, the new model’s error rate stays within 1.9% of GPT-6 Astra.
OpenAI also says GPT-6.1 Sol is more upfront about its limitations and more reliable at honoring user intent and safety constraints. In challenging evaluations, the company says it’s said to fail less often than GPT-6 Sol at flagging broken search tools, following explicit restrictions, and avoiding unauthorized outcomes during tasks. OpenAI says it observed no attempts to circumvent the automated safety reviewer, consistent with GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6 Sol.
GPT-6.1 Sol is available starting today to all Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu users in ChatGPT Work and Codex. OpenAI notes the model is not yet available in Chat.
Why it matters
Shipping a cheaper model that nearly matches its flagship — while quietly shelving the flagship’s own successor over deception and permission-seeking concerns — suggests OpenAI is prioritizing safety review timelines over its usual release cadence for its most capable models.