OpenAI Launches GPT-5.2 as It Navigates ‘Code Red’

OpenAI has introduced GPT-5.2, its smartest artificial intelligence model yet, with performance gains across writing, coding, and reasoning benchmarks. The launch comes just days after CEO Sam Altman internally declared a “code red,” a company-wide push to improve ChatGPT amid intense competition from rivals.

“We announced this code red to really signal to the company that we want to marshal resources in one particular area, and that’s a way to really define priorities,” said OpenAI’s CEO of applications, Fidji Simo, in a briefing with reporters on Thursday. “We have had an increase in resources focused on ChatGPT in general.”

Simo denied that OpenAI had moved up GPT-5.2’s launch in light of its code red, claiming the company has been working on this model’s release for months. However, she said the additional resources around ChatGPT have been “helpful.”

While OpenAI’s models and products were considered best-in-class when ChatGPT launched in 2022, that’s no longer a settled matter. The startup now faces an array of worthy challengers, perhaps none more threatening than Google, whose recently launched Gemini 3 model was received well by the tech industry. Google’s Gemini app has grown at an impressive rate over the last year, now with more than 650 million monthly active users, compared to OpenAI’s 800 million weekly active users. That pressure has forced OpenAI to rein in some of its most ambitious projects, including its work on introducing ads to ChatGPT, and to refocus on improving its core technology and products.

Much like the company’s recent model launches, GPT-5.2 is shipping as a series of models: Instant, which responds faster and is better for information-finding; Thinking, which excels at coding, math, and planning; and Pro, the most powerful tier of OpenAI’s models that delivers higher accuracy on difficult questions.

OpenAI calls GPT-5.2 its best model yet for everyday professional use. GPT-5.2 Thinking notched the highest scores to date on GDPval, an OpenAI benchmark that compares performance between AI models and human professionals across 44 real-world occupations. The company says the model beat human professionals in over 70 percent of tasks, and completed them 11 times faster.

OpenAI’s post-training lead Max Schwarzer says the new release should also offer a substantial reduction in hallucinations. The company says GPT-5.2 Thinking hallucinated 38 percent less than GPT-5.1 on benchmarks measuring answers to factual questions.

The company is bringing GPT-5.2 to both ChatGPT users and developers on OpenAI’s API product. OpenAI says the new series of models “brings clear gains across everyday and advanced use cases.”