OpenAI released its anticipated update to GPT-5 on Thursday, boasting that the new AI is “the most capable model series yet for professional knowledge work.”
“We designed GPT‑5.2 to unlock even more economic value for people; it’s better at creating spreadsheets, building presentations, writing code, perceiving images, understanding long contexts, using tools, and handling complex, multi-step project,” the company said in a statement.
In a benchmark test called GDPval, OpenAI said its new AI model can outperform “industry professionals at well-specified knowledge work tasks spanning 44 occupations.”
“GPT‑5.2 Thinking produced outputs for GDPval tasks at >11x the speed and <1% the cost of expert professionals, suggesting that when paired with human oversight, GPT‑5.2 can help with professional work,” the company said.
OpenAI
And in a note that is sure to catch the attention of bankers, OpenAI wrote that in an internal benchmark of junior investment banking analyst spreadsheet modeling tasks — “such as putting together a three-statement model for a Fortune 500 company with proper formatting and citations, or building a leveraged buyout model for a take-private” — the new model’s score per task was “9.3% higher than GPT‑5.1’s, rising from 59.1% to 68.4%” on average.
OpenAI said that GPT-5.2 will begin rolling out today for paid ChatGPT plans. Paid users will have access to GPT-5.1 for three months under legacy models before it is sunsetted.
“We deploy GPT‑5.2 gradually to keep ChatGPT as smooth and reliable as we can,” the company said.
The company also touted its gains in agentic coding ability.
“Even without the ability to do new things like output polished files, GPT-5.2 feels like the biggest upgrade we’ve had in a long time. Curious to hear what you think!” OpenAI CEO Altman wrote on X.
OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo said more changes will be coming next year once OpenAI rolls out age verification across ChatGPT. She said an “adult mode” for the chatbot will debut in the first quarter of 2026.
The release comes just over a week after Altman declared a “code red” in a private message to employees, marshaling more resources to ChatGPT amid increasing competition from Google and other companies.
“Code reds are not uncommon,” Somo said during an interview on TBPN, adding that the hosts could “be the judge” of the results of Altman’s declaration. She said she was “pretty proud of” GPT-5.2’s advances, even though its development pre-dated the “code red.”
Google has been considered by many in tech to be gaining, if not surpassing, OpenAI in the AI race with its recent release of Gemini 3.
The announcement also occurred hours after OpenAI brokered a major deal with Disney, which secured a $1 billion investment and access to the media giant’s lucrative and popular IP.
“It has been a very cool last 10 years; OpenAI has been more special to work on than I could have possibly imagined,” Altman wrote on X on Thursday.
