OpenAI launches GPT-6 Sol and Luna at half the cost — SkimNews
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- OpenAI launched updated GPT-6 Sol and Luna models, expanding the GPT-6 generation that began earlier this month with GPT-6 Astra, which the company called its most powerful model yet
- GPT-6 Sol and Luna are priced at roughly half the cost of the 5.6 series, a reduction OpenAI attributes to improvements in caching and inference
- GPT-6 Sol makes about half as many factual mistakes as its predecessor, reaching what OpenAI calls "Astra-level reliability at much lower cost" on an internal evaluation of de-identified real-world conversations
- OpenAI claims the new Sol and Luna models outperform Anthropic's top models, including Fable and Opus, on coding and clerical tasks
- Anthropic released an updated version of Opus 5.5 just 90 minutes before OpenAI's announcement, underscoring the rapid-fire competition between the two labs
- GPT-6 Sol and Luna are available immediately in ChatGPT Work, Codex, and the ChatGPT API for most paid accounts; Luna additionally rolls out to the desktop app and Free and Go users
Why it matters: OpenAI is positioning its mid-tier models as the value play — half the price and meaningfully fewer errors — directly pressuring Anthropic on developer-facing cost. The 90-minute gap between Anthropic's Opus 5.5 release and OpenAI's drop shows how compressed this arms race has become. For paid API customers, the rollout materially lowers the cost of running coding and high-volume clerical workloads starting today.
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