GPT-7: Release date, confirmed details, and specs
Is GPT-7 out yet? What OpenAI has confirmed, the Bel leak explained, a release estimate, and specs vs GPT-6 Astra.
Sep 10, 2026 • 5 Minute Read
This page tracks OpenAI's next major model, and will update as the facts come in and convert to a full launch breakdown the day GPT-7 is officially announced.
Is GPT-7 out yet?
No. As of the time of writing, OpenAI has not announced, previewed, teased, or named a model called GPT-7. The newest OpenAI model is GPT-6 Astra, released to approved organizations on September 3, 2026 and to paying ChatGPT users the following day. No GPT-7 has appeared in any of OpenAI’s official model documentation, the company’s Deployment Safety Hub, its SEC-filled prospectus, or any official statements.
Currently, any claims about GPT-7 are linked to confusion about GPT-6’s Astra launch, the unconfirmed “Bel” pretraining leak, or something similar.
What is OpenAI's latest model right now?
GPT-6 Astra, launched September 3, 2026. It is OpenAI's current flagship and the direct successor to GPT-5.6 Sol.
GPT-7 release date: what's known and what's estimated
OpenAI has given no date for when GPT-7 will be released. However, we can estimate generally when it will happen based on past model release trends. Currently, the cadence points to GPT-7 being released in the second half of 2027.
Here’s the previous release data used for that estimate. For whole-number releases, OpenAI has been bringing these out in shorter and shorter timeframes:
| Model | Release | Gap from last release |
|---|---|---|
| GPT-3 | June 2020 |
— |
| GPT-4 | March 14, 2023 |
~33 months |
| GPT-5 | August 7, 2025 |
~29 months |
| GPT-6 Astra | September 3, 2026 |
~13 months |
It’s unlikely that OpenAI will use a whole number for a new model release before at least six months have passed, which means the soonest you’d see something named GPT-7 is Q2 2027 (and even that’s fairly optimistic). And with the current pace of competition, they won’t want to skip an entire year and look like they’re behind, hence the H2 2027 estimate.
That said, you’re going to wind up with a lot of point-releases before then — things like ‘GPT-6.1’ and ‘GPT-6.2’. To date, OpenAI has been doing this roughly every six to ten weeks. There’s good reasoning behind this: development is incremental, it keeps interest levels up, and it helps project a sense of competition compared to offerings like Anthropic’s Claude.
GPT-7 specs at a glance
Nothing about GPT-7 has been confirmed. The table below shwos the current flagship as the baseline that any GPT-7 model should be measured against, barring any recent point releases that supersede GPT-6 Astra.
| Spec | GPT-6 Astra (Confirmed) | GPT- |
|---|---|---|
| Release date | Sept 3, 2026 | Not announced |
| API model ID | gpt-6-astra | Not announced |
| Context window | ~1.05M tokens | Not announced |
| Input | Text, image | Not announced |
| Output | Text | Not annoucned |
| Knowledge cutoff | April 2026 | Not announced |
| Base model (Reported) | "Doug" | Possibly "Bel" (unverified) |
| Preparedness level | Critical (Cyber) | Not assessed |
| Training compute | 100,000+ GPUs, Stargate Texas | Not announced |
Will the next OpenAI model be called GPT-7?
While nothing is certain until official release, this is extremely likely. However, OpenAI is now using two naming labels at once: the version number (GPT-5.6, GPT-6) and a set of codenames for model classes (Astra, Sol, Luna, etc.) This is pretty common in the industry, given you’ve got things like Anthropic’s Claude (Opus, Haiku, Sonnet, Mistral) and Google’s Gemini (Flash, Pro) also using codenames.
GPT-7 pricing
GPT-7’s pricing has not been announced yet. The best indicator of how much it will cost is what OpenAI has priced its previous models at, listed below.
| Model | Input / M | Output / M | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.6 Sol (Launch rate in July 2026) | $5 | $30 | - |
| GPT-6 Astra (Sept 2026) | $10 | $50 | ~2x input, ~1.7x output |
| GPT-7 | Not announced | Not announced | - |
Given flagship prices are going up, not down, it’s a safe bet that GPT-7 will cost $10 or more for inputs and $50 or more for outputs. This is also fairly consistent with AI companies using low costs to get market share then upping the costs over the long term to turn a profit and pay back investors.
The above figures also don’t tell the whole story, because your per-task cost is going to matter more than your per-token cost. Namely, you can pay less for tokens but lose out on the volume you need to actually get something done. Conversely, you might wind up paying more per-token for GPT-7 but end up saving more with per-task costs than if you’d used GPT-6.
Here were the GPT subscription tiers at Astra’s launch for reference: Plus ($20/mo), Pro ($200/mo), Business ($100/mo), Enterprise (Variable). No new tier was introduced for Astra.
GPT-7 benchmarks
No GPT-7 benchmarks currently exist (Note: Are you sensing a theme in this article?) Below are the Astra results that GPT-7 will likely be compared against.
Vendor-reported (The numbers that OpenAI have released themselves):
| Benchmark | GPT-6 Astra | GPT-5.6 Sol |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-3 (custom harness) | 99.9% | - |
| ARC-AGI-3 (standard harness) | 62.7% | - |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 97.6% | - |
| OSWorld 2.0 (computer use) | 72.6%, ~40 min/task | 65.7%, ~75 min/task |
| DeepSWE v1.1 | 74.1% | 72.7% |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 | 57.9% | 37.3% |
| Internal Database Migration | 63.9% | 42.7% |
| ExploitBench | 100% | 78.5% |
| ExploitGym | 42.4% | 30.3% |
Third-party (Artificial Analysis, single harness):
| Index | GPT-6 Astra | GPT-5.6 Sol | Claude Fable 5.1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence Index | 61 | 61 | 66 |
| Coding Agent Index | 67 | ~65 | 70 (67.2 in some runs) |
GPT-7 vs GPT-6 Astra
Because GPT-7 has yet to be released, direct comparison isn't possible yet. This section will be updated as more reports come in.
How to get access to GPT-7
GPT-7 has not been released anywhere yet, and so there is no way to access it. What we do know is how OpenAI released Astra, which acts as a signal for how they will likely release GPT-7: access through a gated program first, then paid ChatGPT tiers top-down, then API, with the model's most sensitive capabilities held back. Free-tier access to a flagship at launch has not happened since GPT-5.
GPT-7 in the API
No GPT-7 API endpoint, model string, or rate limits exist. Developer-relevant facts about the current flagship:
Model ID: gpt-6-astra
Context: ~1.05M tokens combined prompt and retained conversation
Pricing: $10 / $1 (cached) / $50 per million tokens
Modalities: text + image in, text out
Codex: Astra introduced a context-preservation mechanism that replaces repeated summarization with searchable notes across context windows, enabled via config.toml and slated to become default
What is "Bel"?
Bel is an alleged OpenAI pretraining run, leaked August 25, 2026 by an anonymous X account, described as a 10T+ parameter successor to the "Doug" base model that underlies Astra. Unconfirmed by OpenAI or any outlet with documents.
Is Bel the same as GPT-7?
No, even by the leak's own framing. Bel is described as a base model for post-GPT-6 products, not a product itself.
How this article was made
In the production of this article, an AI tool was used to assist with research and produce the first draft. A Pluralsight editor verified the sources, reviewed the analysis, and rewrote the article before publication. This page is updated as new information becomes available.
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