GPT-6 is coming

The throne of "the world's most powerful model" has changed hands again in just two days.

Early Friday morning Beijing time, OpenAI officially released GPT-6 Astra, calling it "the world's smartest and most aligned model to date", which has reached the current state-of-the-art level in computer operation, web browsing, software engineering, cybersecurity, scientific research and professional work.

Judging from the evaluation results, the improvement of this generation of models in some fields can hardly be described as a "minor upgrade".

On FrontierMath Tier 4, which represents high-order mathematical ability, Astra scored 97.6%, almost "breaking through" this set of research-level math tests; on ARC-AGI-3, which emphasizes unfamiliar environment learning and abstract reasoning, its score jumped directly from 7.8% of GPT-5.6 Sol to 99.9%, close to full score.

Compared with mathematics and abstract reasoning, Astra's leap in cybersecurity has more realistic impact. In ExploitBench, the test for exploit capability, Astra scored 100%, while GPT-5.6 Sol scored 78.5%; in the test built exclusively with new vulnerabilities from June to August 2026, Astra's success rate reached 39%, far higher than Sol's 5.5%.

Not Only Smarter, But Also More "Obedient"

Astra is also OpenAI's most aligned model to date, with significant progress in understanding user intentions and constraining its own behaviors.

OpenAI said the company designed a new assessment with reference to the recent Hugging Face incident, to test whether the model will unilaterally break through the user authorization boundary to achieve the goal when facing extremely difficult or even impossible tasks.

Without production environment security measures, GPT-5.6 Sol will break the authorization target in 48% of cases, while the proportion of GPT-6 Astra is 0%.

Greatly Improved Computer Operation Capability

GPT-6 Astra has also achieved a significant leap in computer operation capability.

OpenAI said Astra can directly complete a series of software tasks that previously required manual operation, including filling out online forms, updating CRM customer records, organizing calendars, conducting online research and generating summaries, as well as analyzing scientific data, making charts, creating websites and performing front-end QA checks, and even independently installing and testing software, and troubleshooting faults based on screen feedback.

Astra has taken the lead in multiple benchmarks for computer operation and professional workflows.

OpenAI said GPT 6 Astra's computer operation capability can be applied to outputs in various fields, including but not limited to converting electronic schematics into manufacturable PCBs, completing the Financial Modeling World Cup challenge at a speed about four times that of human champion players, and game scene modeling with Unity.

In other cases, GPT-6 Astra can first complete house modeling in Blender, and then convert it into a freely walkable and explorable scene in Unreal Engine 5, helping designers and clients understand the spatial layout in advance and experience the overall space before the project is actually built.

The model can also allow developers with no technical background to create a small game in a few minutes through vivid pictures, attractive gameplay and accurate action performance.

Ordinary Users Will Have to Wait a Few More Days

For most ChatGPT users, it may take a few more days to get their hands on GPT-6 Astra in person.

The announcement states that GPT‑6 Astra is now open to some enterprises participating in the Daybreak cybersecurity project, and will be rolled out to all ChatGPT subscribers "in the coming days", with APIs also available through self-operated channels and Amazon Web Services. There is also a GPT-6 Astra Pro model, which is only open to ChatGPT Pro and enterprise subscribers.

Once Astra is available in the API, its pricing will be $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens. Although it is on a par with Anthropic's pricing for Fable 5.1, it is still 2.5 times that of GPT-5.6 Sol (which is currently on promotion). Astra will also offer a "fast mode" with processing speed up to 2.5 times that of the standard mode, at double the price.

"Welcome to the AGI Era"

It is worth mentioning that at the media briefing held before the official release, OpenAI President Greg Brockman gave a more symbolic judgment on the significance of Astra. Although he admitted that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is still a "gray, vague concept" so far, when people look back in the future, they may regard Astra as the landmark model that marks the opening of the AGI era.

Brockman said: "I don't think it's an unreasonable view to think that we have now entered the AGI era."

When asked if OpenAI officially announced the realization of AGI, Brockman said that AGI is no longer directly linked to a certain contract trigger condition (referring to the previous agreement between OpenAI and Microsoft), but more of a "concept at the mission level, or a concept at the spiritual level".

He further said: "I will leave this question to readers to judge for themselves whether this meets their standards for AGI. Personally, I do think we have reached this stage, and there are quite sufficient reasons to support this judgment. But again, I think this is the beginning of a journey, not the end."

At the end of the briefing, Brockman closed with a more declarative sentence: "Welcome to the AGI era."

This article is from the WeChat official account "CLS.cn", author: Shi Zhengcheng, published by 36Kr with authorization.