OpenAI launches GPT-6 Astra for computer use and complex work
OpenAI has launched GPT-6 Astra, a model for computer use and complex professional work. Its official video appeared September 3, 2026. The film shows Astra using desktop tools: it turns a sketch into a Blender model, builds a presentation, prepares an eBay listing, drafts a legal template, looks for a tennis court and creates a playable game. These are product demonstrations selected by OpenAI, not independent tests of every workflow shown.
The announcement centres on computer use. OpenAI says Astra can navigate software, interpret what is on screen and complete multistep assignments that combine reasoning with action. In the company’s evaluations, Astra scored 72.6% on an offline subset of OSWorld 2.0, compared with 65.7% for GPT-5.6 Sol, while taking about 40 rather than 75 minutes per task in a latency simulation. It also scored 59.3% on Agents’ Last Exam, which covers professional tasks in real software. Benchmark results depend on the tools, prompts and evaluation setup and do not guarantee the same result in daily use.
Astra is also intended to produce finished work products rather than only text answers. OpenAI highlights documents, spreadsheets, presentations, websites, games and 3D models, alongside a new Codex approach that can preserve and retrieve information across context windows during long assignments. That could reduce repeated briefing in large coding or research projects, although users still need to check sources, outputs and consequential actions.
The release has unusually important safety boundaries. OpenAI classifies Astra at the Critical level for cybersecurity capability under its Preparedness Framework. The version launching broadly will refuse advanced requests such as creating proof-of-concept exploits, while less restrictive defensive access is planned through OpenAI Daybreak. OpenAI calls Astra its most aligned model, but also reports that its written reasoning was harder to monitor than GPT-5.6 Sol’s in tests designed to elicit monitoring evasion.
Astra is initially rolling out to a limited set of organizations. OpenAI says access will expand over the coming days to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise, the OpenAI API and AWS. Enterprise access is off by default at launch. Standard API pricing is listed at $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens. For users and businesses, the practical shift is toward AI that operates software and carries work through to a usable artifact. That makes permission design, review points and clear responsibility more important, not less.