Following Sam Altman’s ‘code red’ issued to his staff in early December, OpenAI has released its newest model ChatGPT-5.2. The upgrade and the code red came after OpenAI observed the rise in competition caused by Google’s Gemini 3, which gained a significant number of users. GPT-5.2 comes in three variants, Instant, Thinking and Pro, offering different levels of speed and accuracy. The upgrade is OpenAI's most aggressive in recent years, and is built to handle real-world professional work rather than simple chat responses. As per reports, the new version can now analyse long contracts, prepare detailed technical documents, write and debug code, and coordinate multi-step tasks with fewer mistakes.
ChatGPT-5.2's rollout began for paid ChatGPT users and developers on December 11. OpenAI also announced a partnership with Disney on Thursday, which brings more than 200 characters into OpenAI’s video platform Sora, along with a $1 billion investment.
As per OpenAI’s statement that came with the launch, GPT 5.2 is designed to unlock even more economic value for people; it’s better at creating spreadsheets, building presentations, writing code, perceiving images, understanding long contexts, using tools, and handling complex, multi-step projects.
The model comes with an emphasis on precision to produce high accuracy and significantly fewer ‘hallucinations’ or nonsensical outputs, particularly in areas such as multi-step tasks, coding, and mathematical problems.
Also Read: OpenAI hits ‘code red’ as AI rivalries heat up
GPT 5.2 Instant is built for everyday work and learning, with clear improvements in info-seeking questions, how-tos and walk-throughs, technical writing, and translation.
GPT 5.2 Thinking is designed for deeper work, helping users tackle more complex tasks with greater polish—especially for coding, summarising long documents, answering questions about uploaded files, working through math and logic step by step, and supporting planning and decisions with clearer structure and more useful detail.
Finally, GPT 5.2 Pro is made for difficult questions, fewer major errors and stronger performance in complex domains like programming.
OpenAI also says that GPT 5.2 Pro and GPT 5.2 Thinking are the world’s best models for supporting and accelerating scientists.
According to the new LMArena Leaderboard, a community-driven platform that ranks Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI systems based on human preferences, ChatGPT-5.2 is very impressive in at least one key area: Web development. The leaderboard has the higher-end GPT-5.2 in second place, behind Claude Opus 4.5 higher-end. Gemini 3 Pro is in the fourth spot, behind Claude Opus 4.5. The base GPT-5.2 model is at sixth, after ChatGPR-5 medium. So, for web development tasks, it appears GPT-5.2 excels above Gemini 3. The ranks are based on the use gauged in a day's time since the launch on Thursday.
In terms of features and availability, Gemini 3 and GPT-5.2 are both series of models, which are then integrated into the Gemini and ChatGPT platforms. Gemini lets users create both AI-generated photos and videos, but ChatGPT lets users create only images, with an option to use the Sora app for AI videos.
Where pricing is concerned, both AI models are almost the same. According to reports, for $20 per month, users get expanded access to the GPT-5.2 models within OpenAI's ChatGPT Plus plan (the Pro plan costs $200/month). Google also charges $20 per month for its Google AI Pro plan (and $249.99/month for Google AI Ultra, which comes with Google cloud storage).
First Published: Dec 12, 2025, 14:52
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