OpenAI Accelerates Retirement of Old Models: GPT-5.5 Exits Less Than Six Months After Launch

Beating AI News Flash: OpenAI has announced that starting October 14, GPT-5.5 will be retired from ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex accessed via ChatGPT accounts, affecting all plans. Codex users will need to switch to GPT-5.6 Sol or GPT-6 Astra.

GPT-5.5 was only released on April 23 of this year, making it just 174 days from launch to planned retirement. At the time, OpenAI positioned it as its flagship model for complex work and coding. With the launch of GPT-5.6 Sol and GPT-6 Astra, 5.5 quickly entered the previous-generation model list.

However, this is not a complete shutdown. OpenAI's API will continue to offer GPT-5.5, and Codex sessions using API keys will not be affected by this retirement. Users on OpenAI's developer forum have already called for keeping the Codex entry point for 5.5, saying it remains more stable and requires less rework in their production coding workflows.