The Artificial Intelligence Show · Tuesday, June 30, 2026
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that while a phased rollout of GPT 5.6 was accepted at the government's request, he believes such processes should not be the long-term default. He noted that while extended red-teaming is beneficial, he dislikes the idea of the government selecting customers for early access.
“Good news first, Soul is a smart, efficient and significant step forward. It is the same price as 5.5. All so launching in the 5.6 family is Terra, with 5.5 level performance at half the price. Bad news, at the request of the US government, it is launching today in limited preview instead of the open access launch we were planning on.”
“I think it is quite reasonable to roll out models, especially as they reach significant new levels of capability in this way, meaning every model moving forward is going to be released this way. It fits with our long-held strategy of iterative deployment, but this isn't quite the process that we think is optimal.”
“I think a required preview period for extended red teaming is not a bad idea, meaning giving experts more time to find vulnerabilities within the model. I just don't like the idea of the government picking the customers.”