OpenAI released GPT-5.2, a three-mode family — Instant, Thinking (with standard and extended effort), and the heavier GPT-5.2 Pro — with gains in instruction following, vision, front-end code generation, and token efficiency. A new xhigh reasoning level and context compaction arrived for long-running work.

The launch came about three weeks after Google's Gemini 3 Pro seized the multimodal lead, and reporting described an internal 'Code Red' memo accelerating GPT-5.2's release. OpenAI executives pushed back on the reactive framing while acknowledging the extra resources helped.

A coding-specialized GPT-5.2-Codex followed on December 18. GPT-5.2 was eventually discontinued in ChatGPT on June 12, 2026.