OpenAI Releases Flagship GPT-5.2 Model Following “Code Red” Alert

OpenAI is on a roll today as it’s rolling out a new GPT-5.2 flagship model right after announcing a landmark AI licensing deal with Disney. GPT-5.2 also comes after the AI startup declared a “code red” alert in reaction to Google’s rapid progress with its latest Gemini 3 model.

Today, OpenAI emphasized that GPT-5.2 “sets a new state of the art across many benchmarks, including GDPval, where it outperforms industry professionals at well-specified knowledge work tasks spanning 44 occupations.” The company added that its latest model brings “significant improvements in general intelligence, long-context understanding, agentic tool-calling, and vision—making it better at executing complex, real-world tasks end-to-end than any previous model.”

GPT‑5.2 is once again available in different flavors, with GPT-5.2 Instant, Thinking, and Pro rolling out today to Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise plans. Free and Go users will get access to the new models starting tomorrow.

GPT-5.2 Instant remains the best model for common queries, and OpenAI said early testers noticed that it provided clearer explanations than its previous GPT-5.1 model. For more complex queries, including coding tasks, GPT-5.2 is here and “hallucinates less than GPT‑5.1 Thinking,” OpenAI said. Lastly, GPT 5.2 Pro, OpenAI’s smartest model, can handle the most difficult questions with “fewer major errors and stronger performance in complex domains like programming.” The ChatGPT maker said it was best suited to assist and accelerate scientists’ work.

Now that OpenAI has released its answer to Gemini 3, you can expect Google to strike back pretty soon. In the meantime, OpenAI will keep GPT-5.1 available for ChatGPT paid users for three months, after which it will be retired.