OpenAI released GPT-5.5 on Thursday, April 24, 2026, describing it as its “smartest and most intuitive to use model” yet. The model is now available to Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users in ChatGPT, with a GPT-5.5 Pro tier rolling out to Pro, Business, and Enterprise users.
Co-founder and president Greg Brockman said the release marks progress “towards more agentic and intuitive computing” and brings the company closer to launching a so-called super app — a unified platform combining ChatGPT, Codex, and an AI browser into a single service aimed at enterprise customers. Brockman and co-founder Sam Altman have previously discussed the concept. “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.
According to Brockman, GPT-5.5 delivers faster, more efficient performance, producing results with fewer tokens than its predecessor, GPT-5.4. OpenAI says the model outperforms previous releases as well as competing models from Google and Anthropic — including Gemini 3.1 Pro and Claude Opus 4.5 — across a range of benchmarks, based on data the company released Thursday.
Chief Research Officer Mark Chen said the model shows improvements in computer navigation and “meaningful gains on scientific and technical research workflows,” adding that OpenAI believes it could help expert scientists advance their work, including in drug discovery. The model is also designed for enterprise applications such as agentic coding, knowledge work, and mathematics.
OpenAI’s Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki signaled that the rapid pace of model releases — with prior launches in March, December, and November — is expected to continue. “We see pretty significant improvements in the short term, extremely significant improvements in the medium term,” Pachocki said, adding that he considers the past two years to have been “surprisingly slow.”
During the press briefing, a reporter asked whether GPT-5.5 would offer capabilities comparable to Mythos, a cybersecurity tool recently announced by Anthropic that has faced controversy over reported unauthorized access. OpenAI technical staff member Mia Glaese said the model would affect the company’s approach to digital defense, citing a “strong and longstanding strategy” for deploying models safely.
The release comes as the super app concept gains broader industry attention. Elon Musk, a former OpenAI colleague of Altman, has separately stated his intention to develop X into a super app of its own.
Source: TechCrunch