OpenAI releases GPT-5.5, bringing company one step closer to an AI ‘superapp’

OpenAI on Thursday released GPT-5.5, its newest AI model, which the company calls its “smartest and most intuitive to use model” yet. The algorithm comes with increased capabilities in a multitude of areas, with OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman claiming that it also brings the company one step closer to the creation of OpenAI’s “superapp.”

On a call with journalists, Brockman said that the new model was a big advancement “towards more agentic and intuitive computing.”

“This model is a real step forward towards the kind of computing that we expect in the future — but it is one step, and we expect to see many in the future,” Brockman said. “It’s a faster, sharper thinker for fewer tokens compared to something like 5.4. So this means that there’s just more frontier AI available for businesses and for consumers, which is part of our goal.”

Brockman also said that the model was an additional step toward creating a “superapp” — a multi-purpose, Swiss Army knife of a program — which Brockman and co-founder Sam Altman have previously discussed launching. The co-founders envision combining ChatGPT, Codex, and AI browser into one unified service that can aid enterprise customers. Notably, the “superapp” concept is also a hot topic with Altman rival (and former OpenAI colleague) Elon Musk, who has said he wants to turn X (formerly Twitter) into its own so-called superapp.

OpenAI released its last model only last month, with a previous release in December and, before that, November. The company has continued to churn out new models at a crisp pace, a trend that company staff said should be expected to continue for the foreseeable future. “We see pretty significant improvements in the short term, extremely significant improvements in the medium term,” said Jakub Pachocki, OpenAI’s chief scientist. “In fact, I would say, like, I think the last two years have been surprisingly slow.”

According to OpenAI, GPT-5.5 is designed to be useful across a broad array of categories, including foundational enterprise areas like agentic coding and knowledge work, but also in more experimental AI applications like mathematics and scientific research. The company also released data Thursday showing the model’s superior performance across a range of benchmarks. Compared to its previous models, and to models from competitors Google and Anthropic (like Gemini 3.1 Pro and Claude Opus 4.5), 5.5 consistently scores higher, according to OpenAI.

OpenAI’s rivalry with Anthropic is never far from discussion, and GPT-5.5 offered another opportunity for the two companies to compare themselves to one another. One reporter during the press briefing asked if GPT 5.5. would have capabilities similar to Mythos, the cybersecurity tool recently announced by Anthropic. (Mythos has experienced controversy in recent days due to a report of unauthorized access to the program.) Mia Glaese, a member of OpenAI’s technical staff, said that GPT-5.5 would have a significant impact on the company’s approach to deploying its models towards digital defense. “We have a strong and long standing strategy for our approach to cyber, and we’ve refined a durable approach to rolling out models safely,” Glaese said.

Mark Chen, chief research officer at OpenAI, said that GPT-5.5 was better at navigating computer work than its predecessors, and also said that the model “shows meaningful gains on scientific and technical research workflows,” noting that the company feel it could really “help expert scientists make progress.” Chen also said it could assist with drug discovery, an area that has shown increased industry interest over the last few years.

GPT 5.5. is widely available starting Thursday, according to OpenAI. The company says that the model is deploying to Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users in ChatGPT, while 5.5 Pro is headed to Pro, Business, and Enterprise users.