OpenAI’s GPT-6.1 Sol delivers Astra-like performance at a dramatically lower price

Just a day after OpenAI announced it was unwilling to release its latest model GPT-6.1 Astra due to safety concerns, it has unveiled a newer model called GPT-6.1 Sol. The new model promises to deliver Astra-like performance at a significantly lower cost. This announcement took place at OpenAI’s DevDay event. The naming of the models has become confusing as the company has simultaneously announced GPT-5.6 with three versions - Sol, Terra, and Luna.

Initially, Sol was the most powerful version, but as the company progressed to GPT-6, it was released under the "Astra" moniker. The new GPT-6.1 Sol seems to mock this naming convention. Despite its name, Sol is more powerful than GPT-6.0 Astra. It achieves the same coding and intelligence-based task performance as Astra but at a much lower cost.

For instance, on the DeepSWE 1.1 benchmark, it matches Astra's performance at roughly one-fifth the cost in terms of tokens per task. On the AutomationBench benchmark, it falls slightly short of Astra's performance but outperforms Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5, while costing around one-third in token consumption. In computer use tasks, it outperforms GPT-6 Sol by over 7%, but lags slightly behind GPT-6.1 Astra.

The model also records fewer factual errors compared to GPT-6 Sol. OpenAI estimates that using GPT-6.1 Sol instead of GPT-6.0 Astra would cost just 10 cents per million tokens, about half of Astra's price. While GPT-6.1 Sol is recommended for long-running workloads in coding and application and document work, Astra remains the company's most powerful model.

However, due to safety concerns, the company has delayed its public release indefinitely. The new GPT-6.1 Sol is now available to subscribers of ChatGPT Work and Codex Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans. It is not yet available for the standard ChatGPT application but should soon be an option. OpenAI also introduced a new set of "always-on" AI agents called Dots at the event, which serve as 24/7 digital assistants.