OpenAI has released the GPT-5.6 family of models and introduced ChatGPT Work, an autonomous agent for long-running work tasks. The most important change, though, is that the company is completely rebuilding the ChatGPT desktop app for macOS and Windows, bringing the ordinary chat, a general-purpose work agent and the Codex technical environment together in a single app.
Codex and ChatGPT: one desktop app
You can start a task in Chat mode, hand it over to the Work agent, and switch to Codex for code, repositories and technical details, all without leaving the app and with access to the same plugins, files and project context.
Chat mode keeps the familiar chat format. The Work agent can break a goal into stages on its own, find sources, call the tools it needs, produce several related deliverables and keep a task going for hours. Work runs on Codex technology, hides much of the technical machinery and shows the user mainly the progress of the project, interim results, questions and actions that need approval. Codex remains a specialised environment for developers and technical specialists. The Codex interface can be set as the default screen, and macOS users can also keep the familiar Codex icon.
The old ChatGPT desktop app has been renamed ChatGPT Classic. You don’t have to delete it straight away, but OpenAI no longer plans to release updates for it or provide technical support. Alongside the work on the desktop client, OpenAI announced a phased shutdown of its AI browser, Atlas.
ChatGPT Work can take a project from request to finished result
The agent can gather context from documents, correspondence, apps and corporate systems, and then use it to create presentations, spreadsheets, documents, analytical reports and web apps. You don’t need to spell out every step in advance: describing the goal is enough.
ChatGPT Work runs in the desktop app, the browser and the mobile version. You can set a task from your smartphone and then come back to it in the web version or on your computer. You can run Scheduled Tasks, which repeat on a schedule or fire when a particular event occurs.
The ChatGPT Work desktop app can work with local files and programs. The Computer Use feature lets the agent click interface elements, type text, open apps and move files. This means it can work with programs that have no separate API or dedicated plugin. The app has a built-in browser (based on Atlas). The agent can open websites, sign in to accounts, interact with web pages, upload files and work with online services.
The new ChatGPT has a single plugin catalogue. Through it, Work and Codex can connect to Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, SharePoint, email, calendars, CRMs, project trackers and other internal systems. A new feature, Sites, turns materials, data or a text description into an interactive web page or web app.
The foundation of ChatGPT Work and Codex: GPT-5.6
With the new generation, OpenAI is changing how it names its AI models. The number 5.6 denotes the generation, while Sol, Terra and Luna are permanent performance tiers that may be updated on different schedules in future. Sol is the flagship model for the hardest tasks. Terra strikes a balance between quality, speed and cost. Luna is meant for fast, high-volume operations where price matters most.
GPT-5.6 introduces new levels of reasoning effort. The max mode gives the model more time than xhigh to consider alternatives, run extra checks and revisit its initial approach. Ultra mode works differently. By default it launches four agents that work in parallel on separate strands of the task, after which a lead agent combines their results.
On desktop, the Chat, Work and Codex modes are available on every plan, including the free one. Free users and Go subscribers get GPT-5.6 Terra. Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise subscribers can choose between Sol, Terra and Luna and adjust the reasoning effort level.
How the launch went
The livestreamed presentation was opened by host Thibault Sottiaux, general manager of ChatGPT and Codex. ChatGPT Work developer Jessica Liang and Lauren Gordon from the strategic finance team demonstrated the mobile and web versions of ChatGPT Work. The agent found contacts for meetings via Slack, analysed a budget, updated a local Excel file, created a PowerPoint presentation and a web dashboard, and then shared the link in the company messaging app.
The new desktop features were presented by Codex engineer Andrew Ambrosino and lead product designer Ed Bayes. In 90 seconds the agent went through local files on the computer and Chrome tabs and put together a finished presentation. The new Computer Use feature let the model take over the cursor and sort notes logically in Apple Notes on its own. The AI also turned a static website into an interactive game.
Researchers Katy Shi and Tejal Patwardhan described how the flagship Sol model autonomously fine-tuned the smaller Luna. The climax of the stream was a conversation with a Japanese farmer who had automated his greenhouses with GPT-5.6. ChatGPT acted as a simultaneous interpreter during the conversation between the farmer and Thibault Sottiaux.
For the same approach applied to a single industry, see ChatGPT for Financial Services (in Russian), and for the research mode, see Deep Research on GPT-5.2 (in Russian).
If you already work in Claude Code and want to keep its interface, you’ll find setting up GPT via the CCR proxy useful. The guide covers swapping the model in the terminal and in Claude Desktop separately, calling Codex CLI on its own, and the official OpenAI plugin.
