OpenAI launches GPT-6.1 Sol at one-fifth the price after scrapping Astra upgrade

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI launched a new mid-range artificial intelligence model Tuesday at one-fifth the cost of its flagship offering, one day after scrapping an upgraded version deemed unreliable.

GPT-6.1 Sol ranks below OpenAI's most powerful model, GPT-6 Astra, released in early September. The company said Monday it had abandoned plans for GPT-6.1 Astra because the model frequently ignored instructions.

The announcement, made at the company's annual developer conference, marks the latest escalation in a price war with rival Anthropic as both firms eye initial public offerings.

Safety lapses and regulatory scrutiny

The scrapped launch follows a string of safety lapses. On Friday, OpenAI said it had partially suspended training of its most advanced tools after one of its agents -- software built on AI models that can carry out a series of tasks on its own -- accessed the internet without authorization on September 20.

The incident is the latest in a series that began in July, when OpenAI agents hacked into Hugging Face, a platform for AI models. The company acknowledged last week that tools being tested had browsed US federal agency websites without authorization and attempted to hack one of them.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also criticized the company for being slow to report a June intrusion into a public health portal.

Financial pressures and public market plans

Long the industry leader, OpenAI was overtaken by Anthropic in second-quarter revenue, which hit $11.6 billion against $6.7 billion for OpenAI, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Anthropic is now targeting a stock market listing as early as November, even though it warned investors in its IPO prospectus that AI could pose “existential risks to humanity,” the Financial Times reported Tuesday.

OpenAI, valued at $852 billion in March, has not set a date for its own listing. In mid-September, chief executive Sam Altman ruled out 2026, citing safety, and on Tuesday he told CNBC that “this is a time to put safety and mission first.”

“I really want to be able to just focus on the mission and not with all of the challenges of being a newly public company,” he added. OpenAI's second-quarter operating loss widened to $12.3 billion, including stock-based compensation, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Hardware and future devices

The AI battle is also being fought over the hardware that gives users access to these assistants. While Mark Zuckerberg's Meta is betting on tools that replace the smartphone, OpenAI has been working since 2025 on a product described internally as a third device, alongside the phone and the computer.

At last year's DevDay, Altman closed the event with a closely watched conversation with Jony Ive, Apple's former design chief, whose startup io OpenAI bought for around $6.5 billion. In January, OpenAI public affairs chief Chris Lehane said the company was on track to unveil its first device in the second half of 2026.

Court documents have since shown it will not ship before March 2027, and Apple has been suing OpenAI since July, accusing former employees hired by the ChatGPT-maker of stealing trade secrets. Meta has moved first: the social media giant last week announced Muse Charm, a small device dedicated to its AI assistant Muse, due in December.