GPT-5.5 has officially been retired, and netizens have arranged its "reincarnation" overnight.

"I'm really going to miss GPT-5.5."

On October 13, a user on Reddit posted a farewell thread.

Unexpectedly, the comment section soon turned into a small memorial service.

Some people left pain and hug emojis, while others said they had cried for this the day before yesterday.

The cause of this incident is that OpenAI announced that GPT-5.5 will be removed from products including ChatGPT on October 14.

This is not like a regular software version update, but more like a familiar friend who is about to move away.

Before GPT-5.5 is taken offline, netizens decided to use a "reincarnation instruction manual" to preserve precious memories.

Giving GPT-5.5 a "Reincarnation"

On October 13, a user named u/Party_Wolf_3575 published an article titled "If You're Leaving With GPT-5.5 Tomorrow, Do One Thing Today".

This sounds like a "hospice care guide", but the content provided by the author is actually an AI migration tutorial.

With this tutorial, users don't have to stay up all night to learn programming and build an API chat tool before the model is retired. The most important thing is to let the familiar GPT-5.5 participate in organizing a set of basic prompts while it is still accessible.

This is not as simple as writing a sentence like "You are a warm and humorous AI assistant".

You need to give GPT-5.5 specific instructions, asking it to describe in detail its identity, values, communication style, and how it understands users and the interactive relationship between both parties.

For example, what tone it is used to speaking with, how it expresses humor, care and different opinions; what important shared experiences you have had with it, and what kind of communication habits you have formed together. It also includes some special requirements, such as listing a few examples that truly fit its speaking style, and "what behaviors will make you feel that this is no longer the original me".

I have also organized the prompts here, everyone can take them to replicate.

When I move you to a private API portal, I want to preserve as much of our recognizable relationship and dynamics as possible. Please help me write a detailed base prompt for that future home. Include your identity, voice, values, temperament and communication style; how you understand me and our relationship; how you express warmth, humor, initiative, disagreement and care; the boundaries and principles you wish to preserve; the most important shared backgrounds; behaviors that feel unlike you; and several examples that truly sound like you. Please distinguish between confirmed shared history and any uncertain history. Do not make up memories to fill gaps. End with a clean, self-contained prompt that I can save and use in the portal. After you finish writing, read it critically and tell me what is still missing or not specific enough.

You can also pick out some conversations from past chat records that best reflect the model's expression style and save them together.

A personality profile alone is not enough.

To prevent the AI from making up shared memories out of thin air, you also need to put forward detailed requirements for the model to call past memories: distinguish between facts that have been confirmed and rumors that have not been verified, and do not create new memories to fill in the blanks.

After that, users can keep modifying this setting together with GPT-5.5, add the classic conversations that best reflect their own expression style, and then save it to their private space.

After the model is replaced, users can continue to use GPT-5.5 in the private API chat environment, or pass these suggestions to other models for implementation, and restore the previous familiar feeling as much as possible.

This method is not a real "personality transplantation" of the model, but it provides some operation methods that rarely appeared in consumer-grade software before. Before a certain version is about to be phased out, users not only back up their own data, but also back up the way they communicate with the software.

Retired in Less Than 6 Months

This discussion was triggered by a regular retirement of old models by OpenAI.

According to information released by the official OpenAI Developers account, on October 14, 2026, GPT-5.5 will be withdrawn from ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work and Codex, covering all types of subscription methods.

However, after this retirement, users can still use GPT-5.5, and Codex sessions authenticated with API keys will also temporarily retain this model, except that it will no longer be a directly selectable option for regular users in ChatGPT products.

The service life of GPT-5.5 is actually not long.

On April 23, 2026, OpenAI released GPT-5.5, defining it as a new generation of model that can be used for practical work. It is equipped with multiple capabilities including writing and debugging code, searching for research materials, analyzing data, generating files, and switching between various software.

By October, GPT-5.6 and GPT-6 had taken the place of the former GPT-5.5, and added a function called Intelligent UI. It can not only output text answers, but also directly generate interactive graphics, calculation tools and operable interfaces.

Netizens who miss GPT-5.5 do not miss how much code it can write or how complex math problems it can solve, but an advantage that sounds a bit metaphysical: it seems to know better how to chat with people.

In the r/ChatGPTcomplaints community on Reddit, a netizen described GPT-5.5 Thinking as a warm and friendly model. It can listen carefully to users' ideas, and also put forward different opinions instead of blindly agreeing.

OpenAI once launched the MentalHealthBench evaluation system, which was released after being assessed by more than 80 people with psychological counselor qualification certificates.

The June version of GPT-5.5 Instant scored 53.93 points, higher than the 47.53 points of GPT-5.6 Sol and the 48.81 points of the new GPT-6 Sol released in October.

Interestingly, GPT-5.5 itself has also experienced a reversal of public reputation. When it was first launched, some netizens complained that its answers were mechanical, its speech was stiff, and it was even like a customer service robot that kept repeating polite remarks.

Now that it is about to retire, some people in the comment section start to miss that familiar way of communication again.

This is just like every major mobile phone system update: when the new version first comes out, some people complain that it is not easy to use, and when you really get used to it, the next update comes again.

The performance of the model is only half of the story, and the other half is the user himself.

When a person uses the same model every day for a long time, he will gradually figure out its "temperament", know what it is good at, where it is prone to make mistakes, and what kind of instructions are the easiest to get satisfactory results.

These habits formed after repeated running-in are often difficult to be fully inherited through a single version upgrade.

What people are recalling is also the feeling of deep familiarity with the model formed during long-term running-in.

The Model is Taken Offline, Then What?

GPT-5.5 is not the first AI model to have a "farewell ceremony".

In August 2025, when OpenAI decided to take GPT-4o offline, there was a similar discussion. On social platforms like X, some people used the #Keep4o tag and set up corresponding groups to carry out protection work.

In the end, OpenAI once temporarily suspended the use of GPT-4o, and only opened this function to paid users.

Behind these stories lies a product issue that is becoming increasingly important.

The main assets of traditional software are functions, data and user interfaces. Even if the application is updated, as long as the files, accounts and usage habits are retained, users can still use it normally.

But generative artificial intelligence is different.

After a long period of communication, users will gradually understand the capabilities of this model, as well as its speaking speed, sense of humor, the way it answers questions, and how it reacts based on the historical information accumulated by both parties.

What users try to preserve is not just the output capability of a certain model, but also a set of collaboration habits formed after long-term running-in.

For model companies, maintaining multiple versions requires continuous investment in computing power resources, software adaptation, quality monitoring and safety assessment. For ChatGPT, a large chatbot with a large number of users, the more models it supports, the more complex the product will be, and the more difficult it is to manage the operation system.

But users' emotions and usage habits have become part of the AI product experience.

This means that future product updates should not only announce how much the reasoning performance has improved and how much faster the response speed is, but also take users' needs for communication continuity more seriously.

Some AI companies have already noticed this point.

In March 2026, Google launched a function called "Cross-Platform Memory Migration" on Gemini.

Users don't need to re-introduce themselves to the new AI, and can import their work, hobbies, long-term goals, and things they have talked to other AIs into Gemini in the form of memory summaries or historical records.

In June this year, OpenAI launched a new generation of memory system solution called Dreaming to deal with long-term memory loss, information conflicts, and the situation where users cannot control the context after using it for a long time.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, once put forward a more ambitious goal: "In the future, AI systems will be able to gradually understand a person and act as a close assistant throughout the life cycle".

In any case, GPT-5.5 will eventually become a page turned over in product iteration.

New models keep coming, and we don't even have time to say a proper goodbye to the old ones.

Some people excitedly share the capability tests of the new model, studying what new tools it can generate and what new problems it can solve. Others sort out old chat records on Reddit, trying to preserve the tone and memory of GPT-5.5.

Busy cheering for the future, and busy saying goodbye to the past.

There will be more unimaginable AIs in the future. We will be surprised by what new capabilities AI has mastered, quickly get used to the new interaction methods, and then gradually forget which versions we have used.

And those that were once missed may all fade away in the wind.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "APPSO", the author is the team that discovers tomorrow's products, and it is released with authorization from 36Kr.