Tag: chatgpt

Advertising in ChatGPT is now a projected billion dollar business

More people are seeing ads on ChatGPT and revenue is growing, OpenAI says. (Picture: generated)
In less than 200 days since launch, OpenAI’s ads business has reached a billion dollars in «annualized revenue run rate,» which means that they project this annual number from current revenue.

Ads started as a project only available to partners and agencies, which now counts more than 50 partners — and became a self-serve system in May, that now consists of a «material share» of the business.

ChatGPT only shows ads on the Free and Go tiers, which is used by the vast majority of their billion plus weekly users, and only in the current context of the conversation. It is possible to opt in to more general context from all conversations, though likely few people do that. The ads themselves have no access to said chats or context and don’t influence ChatGPT’s replies.

Having reached the billion dollar benchmark, OpenAI are now expanding the self-serve ad network to India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa — reaching a total of 40 countries.

Advertisers are «increasingly global,» and OpenAI says non-US revenue is a «growing share of revenue» as many advertisers are now reaching consumers in «multiple markets.»

OpenAI had originally projected $2.5 billion in advertising revenue for 2026, Reuters reports. They reached $100 million in annualized run-rate revenue in April this year, within six weeks since launch.

Read more: OpenAI’s announcement. Reuters, CNBC, and Axios.

ChatGPT gets an Apple Messages plugin — and it looks kind of useful

ChatGPT can now send messages on your behalf, but be careful with the permissions. (Picture: generated)
ChatGPT with Messages works in Work and Codex but not in regular chats. It can work across apps on your computer, so you can ask it to check the calendar for which days you are free for dinner and send it in a message to anyone in your Contacts.

The plugin can also search and analyze your messages and give you a list of, say, who you exchange the most messages with, which spam messages you can delete, or what messages need follow-ups.

OpenAI does say to be careful with permissions, as the plugin is required by default to get your approval before it sends any messages in your name. Without this setting, things can quickly get out of hand, so they recommend you keep it on.

— Persistent approval removes your final chance to review a message before ChatGPT sends it as you. Use it only when you accept that risk, OpenAI warns in its instructions.

The plugin runs locally on the user’s Mac and «doesn’t create an index of someone’s messages,» according to TechCrunch.

ChatGPT with Messages is free and available on all plans in the ChatGPT desktop app for macOS on Apple Silicon, and it can read and reply to anything Messages can receive. It does not, however, work the other way — and won’t let you interact with ChatGPT through SMS.

Read more: Announcement post and instructions. More on 9to5Mac, TechCrunch, MacRumors, and Bloomberg (paywalled).

As future models grow more capable in training, OpenAI pauses for security

Astra was already on hold, but now other models are joining the pause. (Picture: generated)
While calling for industry-wide coordination on safety in model training, OpenAI has unilaterally decided to pause the training of upcoming models.

— As models become more capable, the risks associated with developing and testing them internally also grow. Our standards for monitoring, alignment, and security must stay ahead of those risks, OpenAI writes.

This comes after the Hugging Face incident and Astra reaching critical on OpenAI’s Preparedness Framework and already being delayed.

Combined with rapid progress in their internal research, OpenAI says they have implemented a two week pause in training future models, while the «largest planned frontier reinforcement learning run» is put on hold.

They will now implement stronger sandboxing for certain code execution, better network isolation and internet caps, and pursue continuous testing for security, alignment, deception and reward hacking, with a thirty minute warning system for any adverse incident.

The AI lab expects most of this safety training to be handled by their own models in the future, greatly expanding their scope while also reducing the time needed.

Read more: OpenAI’s announcement and Sam Altman on X. Writeups on Axios, The Verge, and TechCrunch. Discussion on r/Singularity.

OpenAI delays upcoming Astra release over worries of «critical» cyber abilities

Astra is getting too advanced, and will be sandboxed and isolated for additional tests. (Picture: generated)
Just days before a rumored release, OpenAI is putting a lid on its much anticipated Astra model and says it might have reached «critical cyber capabilities.»

The consideration was undertaken in the last couple of days, and the decision was made only last night that the model could have reached the highest level of OpenAI’s Preparedness Framework.

That means it could possibly «identify and develop functional zero-day exploits without human intervention» and plan and execute «end-to-end» cyberattacks against hardened targets with only a high-end goal, OpenAI says.

The model is now being isolated in testing with capped network and tool access, as OpenAI deploys sandboxing, extra weight protections and encryption for the model.

They are also putting it under enhanced monitoring to check on its chain of thought for security, are working with «relevant government agencies» to test its capabilities, as well as preparing external testing partners for «high risk evaluations.»

Those who were hoping for an imminent release for this model will in other words be disappointed, as OpenAI now will take their time to strengthen safeguards, expand testing and «deploy additional security controls.»

The Astra model was last seen developing 20 proofs for open problems in mathematics with no human involvement. It was not involved in the Hugging Face incident.

Read more: OpenAI’s announcement, Sam Altman’s X post. Writeups on Axios, TechCrunch, and Reuters. Discussion on Hacker News and r/Singularity.

OpenAI makes GPT-5.6 the default on ChatGPT for free and paid users

Plus and Pro users are getting access to this handy reasoning slider. (Picture: OpenAI)
As ChatGPT has reached a billion weekly users, by far the highest use of any AI lab, OpenAI is updating their default models.

That means users on the Free plan get updated to GPT-5.6 Luna as the standard, with unlimited text chats. They can also access a better reasoning mode with a new «Think» button that can be used for tougher queries.

For Plus and Pro users, Sol is getting promoted to the default, even in the standard chat mode, Instant, that used to be handled by GPT-5.5.

At the same time, OpenAI says they have updated the Sol model itself. It should now deliver «more focused answers,» yet no news on the hedges, caveats and nitpicking that some users find annoying. In fact, OpenAI says it now «offers a helpful correction when simply agreeing wouldn’t be useful.» GPT Sol should also be 68% less error prone than GPT-5.5 Instant.

In addition, Plus and Pro users get an updated slider that pops up in the chat bar to immediately adjust the reasoning level, from Instant to High, Extra High and Pro, depending on the subscription.

The updates should be available «now,» but might take some time to propagate over the internet. The Sol version in use for Work and Codex won’t be changing.

Read more: OpenAI’s presentation, X post. Writeups on TechCrunch, Axios, and The Verge. Discussions on Hacker News and r/Singularity.

OpenAI’s next big model solves ten open mathematics problems

The new model, Astra, was apparently demoed in DC by Altman last week. (Picture: generated)
The breakthroughs in mathematics, quantum complexity, and theoretical computer science are not attributed to any humans, as OpenAI believes it would be wrong to take credit from the model, named Astra, that discovered the proofs on its own.

— Claiming human authorship for a proof generated entirely by an AI system would misrepresent both the system’s contribution and the nature of genuine human intellectual work, OpenAI says in their statement.

They further say that the proofs provided have «substantial interest» in their respective communities and could lead to further scientific work — if they hold up under peer review.

Humans were only used to prepare the manuscripts in conjunction with the Astra model, and the underlying research’s formalized Lean proofs. The report also contains the model’s chain of thought in dealing with the problems.

— The emergence of systems capable of contributing to mathematical research raises questions that cannot be answered by a technology company alone, OpenAI says.

All of the discoveries combined, each without movement for decades or longer, were solved using a combined token cost of some $2,000 at GPT Sol rates, OpenAI says, raising questions not only on whether scientific breakthroughs are possible on future AI systems, but also about the cost of such innovation

Read more: OpenAI’s announcement, the research paper. On the new model: Gizmodo, Bleeping Computer, and The Decoder. Discussion on Hacker News and r/Singularity.

PSA: OpenAI may be «shipping today,» likely something «token efficient»

UPDATE: It was a drastic price reduction for GPT-5.6 Luna, on level with GPT-5.4, which is now 80% cheaper at $0.20/$1.20 input/output, and Terra, on level with GPT-5.5, which is now 20% cheaper at $2.00/$12.00 in/out. Read more in OpenAI’s presentation.

An interesting set of statements from a couple of OpenAI insiders on X may reveal the finer points of an upcoming product release today (Thursday).

The conversation starts with Tibo Sottiaux, the product lead for Codex who is also known for posting updates and limit resets for ChatGPT Work.

He says they are shipping today and that the focus of the week is to make intelligence too cheap to meter — which is precisely where the squeeze lies for enterprise adoption.

Continue reading “PSA: OpenAI may be «shipping today,» likely something «token efficient»”

OpenAI to offer free Pro-level GPT to 100,000 scientists and researchers

Free ChatGPT is intended to supercharge select scientists. (Picture: generated)
The new program stems from a belief that science should be democratized and not be reserved for companies and a few «well-resourced labs.»

The move should also «significantly accelerate scientific discovery,» Sam Altman says, adding that we all deserve the benefits from free and open science.

Eligible academic research institutions should be «recognized, degree-granting colleges or universities» with documented levels of research activity, and approved researchers will be able to invite up to four collaborators from the same institution.

The researchers will get access to a Pro-level GPT subscription including Work, Codex and chat, with the latest frontier OpenAI models, even the Pro model when it arrives, and likely also to future offerings.

They also get «expanded deep research, higher usage limits, and larger context windows» to support their work. In addition to this comes 75 life science skills, specifically targeted on certain fields.

The program is starting off with 10,000 researchers this very summer, and expanding to 100,000 researchers through 2027, by which time even more advanced models are sure to surface.

Read more: OpenAI’s presentation, launch post on X. Writeups on Axios and Engadget.

OpenAI uses GPT-5.6 Sol to autonomously improve its own operations

GPT Sol is improving on its own inference, and now runs constantly to optimize operations. (Picture: generated)
Just one day after a warning on self-improvement, OpenAI is reporting that they put GPT-5.6 Sol to work in Codex to see if it could improve on its own server inference, the process of providing answers to queries after a model has been trained.

The model then «autonomously rewrote and optimized our production kernels,» OpenAI writes in a report.

That means it found work that could be «precomputed, avoided, or parallelized,» leading to a reduced serving cost of 20%.

On speculative decoding, which lets a model produce several tokens in one pass and reduce expensive GPU time, GPT-5.6 Sol designed and ran hundreds of experiments and monitored «the speculator training process.» The end result was improving token efficiency by «more than 15%.»

Not only that, but Sol now runs continuously in Codex to analyze production workloads previously thought too large for manual intervention and «hyper-optimizes» how the engine behind GPT is configured «for each scenario,» optimizing «every part» of the inference loop.

This frees up the team to explore more ideas and makes for lower latency and fewer inference tokens for users. It is also some of the first signs of how AI can be used to atonomously improve on itself in the compute loop and return real-world results, although you can be sure that most modern models are already coded with the help of their own coding engines, as with Claude.

Read more: OpenAI’s report, X post. Discussion on r/Singularity.

ChatGPT desktop to become much-hyped superapp with new Work agent

The new ChatGPT desktop app puts all of OpenAI’s eggs in the same basket. (Picture: OpenAI)
UPDATE: OpenAI seems to have removed the chat history and put the chat itself in a popup window. If you don’t like this in the new app, and a lot of people don’t, it leaves the ChatGPT Classic app untouched, which can be used for pure chats like the old version. It will still recieve updates and won’t become obsolete.

—

Along with the release of GPT-5.6 today comes a new app that looks unremarkable at first, but is a one-stop-shop for all of OpenAI’s features.

The latest addition is called ChatGPT Work, which is billed as an agent that gathers information from your apps and workflows and turns them into spreadsheets, presentations, docs or PDFs and just about anything you want — even web apps.

It’s getting integrated into a much more interesting, upgraded ChatGPT desktop app that will combine Codex, Work, agentic browsing and the normal chat interface.

Continue reading “ChatGPT desktop to become much-hyped superapp with new Work agent”

OpenAI releases GPT-5.6 globally, with this pricing and availability

GPT-5.6-Luna is competitive with recently launched cheap models, while Sol is more expensive. (Picture: OpenAI)
GPT-5.6 was, as promised, released widely to all of OpenAI’s customers today — and will take around 24 hours to fully propagate.

The model reaches state-of-the-art status through many benchmarks, beats Fable and Mythos often, and scores a record on Arc-Agi-2 of 92.5% while being the first to actually solve a puzzle on Arc-Agi 3, measuring how it handles completely unknown situations.

GPT-5.6 comes in three versions; Sol as the flagship, top rated model, Terra as the mid-tier GPT-5.5-level model at half the price, and Luna as the dirt cheap model, likely comparable with GPT-5.4.

The pricing for Sol is at $5 input/$30 output, Terra is at $2.50 input/$25 output, and Luna ticks in at $1 input and $6 output, placing it in a good position to compete with the recently released Grok 4.5 and Muse Spark 1.1.

The Free and Go tiers on ChatGPT only get access to the Terra model, while Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise can choose between all three, and set effort levels.

Pro and Enterprise users get Sol Pro in addition, which provides «the highest quality results on complex tasks.»

API users get access to the whole lot.

Read more: GPT-5.6 launch page.

OpenAI upgrades ChatGPT’s voice model for more natural speech

GPT-Live is better at waiting for its turn to speak, and you can interrupt for a better back-and-forth. (Picture: OpenAI)
150 million people use their voice to interact with ChatGPT per week, OpenAI says, and many have waited patiently since 2024 for an upgrade.

The new GPT-Live uses a «full duplex architecture» that separates out the underlying language model and continuously processes speech.

This means it can do «mmm’s» and «yeah’s» during a conversation to indicate it is actively listening, but more importantly it can listen and speak at the same time.

OpenAI says GPT-Live makes decisions «many times per second» on whether to speak, listen, pause or interrupt, letting it engage more naturally in conversations — and do live translation.

The new model delegates more complex tasks to «the latest frontier model» (currently GPT-5.5) for reasoning or web search and gets back to you as soon as it is ready, sometimes showing cue cards for at-a-glance responses in the app.

GPT-Live is available today by tapping the Voice-button in the app or on the web for Go, Plus and Pro subscribers, and there is a GPT-Live-1 mini for the free tiers.

Read more: OpenAI’s presentation, launch thread, writeups on TechCrunch, The Verge, and Engadget.

GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna are set for general release on Thursday

OpenAI has announced the general release of GPT-5.6 tomorrow. (Picture: OpenAI)
GPT-5.6 was officially unveiled a little over a week ago, but got hampered by a US government intervention for cyber risks and national security, having been shown in benchmarks to beat Anthropic’s Mythos.

At launch, it got released only to some 20 «trusted partners,» and OpenAI promised a general release «in the coming weeks.»

Now those weeks have passed, the government has lifted its restrictions without further explanation, and both OpenAI’s X account and CEO Sam Altman are posting that it will «launch publicly this Thursday.»

This comes after extensive testing by the Center for AI Standards and Innovation within the Department of Commerce, aided by experts from OpenAI, who stayed on call for «potential questions,» Axios reports.

No account has been given as to what specifically caused the delayed launch or what conditions the government had for its release.

Read more: Teknotum: On the launch, On the restrictions. OpenAI’s X post, Altman’s X post. Writeup on Axios.

Chinese model GLM-5.2 almost reaches parity with Opus 4.8 in coding, cyber

Opus 4.8 was released in May, meaning the gap to Chinese models has closed considerably. (Picture: generated)
While not matching GPT-5.5 or Opus 4.8 across the board, the GLM-5.2 is the first open model to come within spitting distance (about 1% on some tests) on coding and cybersecurity tasks at open source benchmarks.

That means Chinese AI lab Z.ai is catching up to cyber capabilities considered by some to be too dangerous to release publicly, and is edging closer to Mythos or GPT-5.6.

The concern is that the new model, released on June 16, is open source and open weight with an MIT license — meaning that anyone can adjust its guardrails and play around with it on any computer capable of running it.

That has researchers worried that China is not only catching up, but that the model might find its way into the hands of bad actors — who will be supercharged when looking for hacking targets, causing what they term «bugmaggedon.»

With Mythos and GPT-5.6 being blocked by the US government, security teams might be tempted to turn to these models at a sixth of the cost of the American frontier, especially as they develop further, notes benchmark provider Semgrep.

Read more: Z.ai’s presentation with benchmarks, Semgrep tests, The Wall Street Journal, and The Verge. Discussion on r/Singularity and Hacker News.

OpenAI «launches» GPT-5.6 models in preview, hopes for quick public release

The flagship GPT-5.6 Sol is the new state of the art for cyber capabilities. (Picture: Adobe)
Caught in yet another government AI debacle, the new models won’t be publicly released until «the coming weeks.» It is getting presented today, and released to «a small group of trusted parties,» said by Axios to number in the twenties.

— We don’t believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default, writes OpenAI, and says — we [are working] with the Administration to develop the cyber Executive Order framework and a repeatable process for future model releases.

In its presentation, OpenAI details three models in the GPT-5.6 series. Sol is the state-of-the-art Mythos-beating model, while Terra is «a balanced model for everyday work,» and delivers on par with GPT-5.5 at half the cost, and Luna is the cost-focused model «delivering stronger capability at our lowest cost.»

Strong on cyber
The models, particularly Sol, are very strong on cyber defense, and are able to identify security vulnerabilities, but not able to execute automated attacks due to strong safeguards, built using 700,000 A100-equivalent GPU hours of red-teaming.

Sol beats Mythos 5 on coding and cybersecurity and uses fewer tokens for better performance on biology tasks. It also comes with a new max mode, which gives more time for better reasoning, and an ultra mode which uses subagents for more complex work.

Prices for Sol are at $5 input/$30 output, for Terra is $2.50 input/$15 output, and Luna is at $1 input/$6 output, and general availability is up to higher powers.

Read more: OpenAI’s presentation, launch thread, Axios, Reuters, and TechCrunch. Discussion on r/Singularity.