OpenAI has introduced GPT-5.2, the smartest artificial intelligence model yet, with performance improvements in writing, coding and reasoning. The launch comes just days after CEO Sam Altman internally declared a “code red,” a company-wide effort to improve ChatGPT amid stiff competition from rivals.
“We announced this code red to signal to the company that we want to deploy resources in a particular area, and that's a way to really prioritize,” OpenAI's CEO of applications, Fidji Simo, said in a briefing with reporters on Thursday. “We've had an increase in resources focused on ChatGPT in general.”
Simo denied that OpenAI had pushed back the launch of GPT-5.2 due to the code red, claiming that the company had been working on the release of this model for months. However, she said the additional resources around ChatGPT have been “useful.”
While OpenAI's models and products were considered best-in-class when ChatGPT launched in 2022, that is no longer a settled issue. The startup now faces a series of valuable challengers, perhaps none more threatening than Google, whose recently launched Gemini 3 model was well received by the tech industry. Google's Gemini app has grown impressively over the past year, now with more than 650 million monthly active users, compared to OpenAI's 800 million weekly active users. That pressure has forced OpenAI to rein in some of its most ambitious projects, including work on introducing ads to ChatGPT, and refocus on improving its core technology and products.
Like the company's recent model launches, GPT-5.2 comes as a series of models: Instant, which is more responsive and better for finding information; Thinking, which excels in coding, calculating and planning; and Pro, the most powerful level of OpenAI models that delivers higher accuracy on difficult questions.
OpenAI calls GPT-5.2 the best model yet for everyday professional use. GPT-5.2 Thinking scored the highest scores to date on GDPval, an OpenAI benchmark that compares the performance of AI models and human professionals in 44 real-world professions. The company says the model beat human professionals in more than 70 percent of tasks and completed them eleven times faster.
OpenAI's post-training lead Max Schwarzer says the new release should also offer a substantial reduction in hallucinations. The company says GPT-5.2 Thinking hallucinated 38 percent less than GPT-5.1 on benchmarks that measure answers to factual questions.
The company is bringing GPT-5.2 to both ChatGPT users and developers on OpenAI's API product. OpenAI says the new family of models “delivers clear benefits in everyday and advanced use cases.”
