ChatGPT improves GPT-5.6 Sol and expands free access

ChatGPT updates GPT-5.6 Sol to deliver more accurate, more direct answers, while expanding free access with unlimited text conversations. Paid users also get a control that lets them decide how much time the AI should spend thinking through each response.

What’s changing for paid users

Plus and Pro plans can use an updated version of GPT-5.6 Sol in ChatGPT starting today. The model aims to adapt better to each question: it responds briefly when the request is simple and provides more context when you’re researching, writing, planning, or making a decision.

It should also make fewer mistakes in answers that depend on dates, figures, sources, rules, or assumptions. In an internal evaluation of financial, medical, and legal questions, answers containing at least one factual error were approximately:

• 62% less frequent with GPT-5.6 Luna than with GPT-5.5 Instant.
• 68% less frequent with GPT-5.6 Sol than with GPT-5.5 Instant.

These are internal test results, not a guarantee that the AI will always be right. You still need to verify information in medical, legal, or financial matters.

The other new feature is a slider available on the web, mobile, and desktop. You can keep it low for quick questions or raise it when you want ChatGPT to spend more effort on a complex task. The idea is for moving from an instant response to a deeper one to feel like giving the same assistant more time, not switching to an AI with a different personality.

More access for people using ChatGPT for free

This week, GPT-5.6 Luna will become the default model for users on the Free and Go plans. Starting next week, those users will also be able to have unlimited text conversations, subject to OpenAI’s abuse-prevention safeguards.

For difficult questions, there will be a new Think button. When you press it, ChatGPT will have more time to analyze the problem before responding. It could help you compare several options, prepare a plan with concrete steps, or review a complicated text.

Unlimited access applies to text chats. Limits will remain for uploading files, generating images, and using other tools.

An update focused on everyday use

OpenAI says around 1,000 million people use ChatGPT each week to find information, organize tasks, research, ask for advice, and work through complex decisions. This update aims to cover that range without filling every response with lists, formatting, or explanations that add nothing.

GPT-5.6 Sol is changing only in ChatGPT’s Chat experience. The versions that run in Work and Codex are not part of this release.

OpenAI also outlines new measures for users it considers under 18. The model receives additional limits to prevent romantic roleplay, age-restricted challenges, and using AI as a substitute for real relationships. It also adds protections around topics such as sexual content, eating disorders, restricted products, dangerous activities, and graphic violence.

The most important difference is not a new name, but how access is distributed. Free users will be able to ask more questions and request deeper analysis when they need it; paid users will have more control over how much effort the AI applies. What remains to be seen is whether that greater availability maintains sufficient accuracy when answers affect real decisions.