GPT-5.6 Sol by OpenAI is the frontier model in the GPT-5.6 family for complex professional work across coding, research, science, and cybersecurity.
Capabilities, design details, and architectural traits
GPT 5.6 Sol is the frontier model in the GPT 5.6 family, positioned as OpenAI's flagship for complex reasoning and coding. It serves as the default tier - the gpt 5.6 alias routes all requests to Sol, and it roughly corresponds to the unsuffixed model tier used in earlier GPT 5 families.
The model targets complex professional work across coding, research, science, cybersecurity, computer use, and design. It supports a 1,050,000-token context window with up to 128,000 output tokens and offers six reasoning effort levels: none, low, medium, high, xhigh, and max.
Sol provides an extensive set of built-in tools through the Responses API. Beyond standard web search, file search, and computer use, it includes hosted shell for executing shell commands, apply patch for code modifications, skills for specialized task invocation, MCP for external tool integration via Model Context Protocol, and tool search for discovering available tools.
| Trait | Detail |
|---|---|
| Family position | Frontier tier in the GPT 5.6 family; the gpt 5.6 alias routes all requests here |
| Hosted shell | Built-in tool for executing shell commands in a hosted environment |
| Apply patch | Built-in tool for applying code patches directly |
| Skills | Built-in tool for invoking specialized model skills |
| MCP | Native Model Context Protocol support for external tool integration |
| Tool search | Built-in capability to discover and search available tools |
| Fine-tuning | Not supported |
Independent evaluations · Artificial Analysis
Independent evaluation data provided by Artificial Analysis. To view the latest benchmarks and full details, visit their official site.
Evaluate specifications, pricing, and independent benchmark indices
| Model Details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| General Info | |||
| Provider | OpenAI | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Release Date | July 9, 2026 | July 24, 2026 | June 9, 2026 |
| Knowledge Cutoff | Feb 2026 | May 2026 | - |
| Context & Limits | |||
| Context Window | 1.1M Best Context Window | 1M | 1M |
| Pricing (per 1M tokens) | |||
| Input Pricing | $5 Best Input Pricing | $5 Best Input Pricing | $10 |
| Output Pricing | $30 | $25 Best Output Pricing | $50 |
| Modalities | |||
| Inputs | textimage | textimage | textimagefile |
| Outputs | text | text | text |
| Benchmarks (0-100) | |||
| Intelligence Index | 60.9 | 63.1 Best Intelligence Index | 62.1 |
| Coding Index | 77.4 | 78.0 Best Coding Index | 76.5 |
| Agentic Index | 57.8 | 59.2 Best Agentic Index | 56.6 |
Graduate-level reasoning and expert Q&A evaluation.
Extremely difficult logical reasoning and knowledge.
Logical reasoning over long context windows.
Benchmark scores are independent evaluations sourced from Artificial Analysis. Intelligence, Coding, and Agentic indices reflect composite performance ratings (0–100).
