OpenAI announced on Friday (June 26) that it will limit the release of its new GPT-5.6 series of artificial intelligence (AI) models to a small group of trusted partners at the request of the U.S. government.
The AI startup said in a blog post on Friday (June 26) that it previewed the model’s capabilities as part of its ongoing engagement with the government, restricted the release of the model at the government’s request, and shared with the government the identity of the trusted partners that would release the model.
During the preview period, OpenAI will continue testing and coordinating with partners as we work to release our models more broadly. The company plans to make these models generally available in the coming weeks, according to the post.
“We do not believe this type of government access process should become the long-term default,” OpenAI said in a post. “We secure the best tools from the users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders, and global partners who need them.”
“We are taking this short-term step because we believe this is the strongest path to broader availability in the coming weeks, while we continue to work with the government to develop a cyber executive order framework and a repeatable process for future model releases,” the company said.
OpenAI describes the three GPT-5.6 models as follows: Sol is the flagship model, the company’s strongest model in terms of agent capabilities in coding, biology, and cybersecurity. Terra is a well-balanced model for everyday work, delivering performance similar to GPT-5.5 at half the cost. Luna is a fast and affordable model that offers powerful features at a low cost offered by the company.
According to a June 5 report, George Osborne, OpenAI’s country director, said that OpenAI will allow the U.S. government to evaluate the capabilities of AI models before the company releases them.
Osborn said the company will comply with the executive order signed June 2 by President Donald Trump. The executive order created a voluntary process for AI companies to provide access to their models.
“Democratic governments are absolutely right to have a major role in how this technology is used and deployed,” Osborne said.
Rival AI startup Anthropic revoked access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models on June 12 in response to a U.S. government export control directive that cited “national security authorities” and called on the company to end access to these models by “all foreign nationals.”
“Our understanding is that the government has figured out a way to circumvent, or ‘break out of,’ Fable 5,” Anthropic said at the time.
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