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

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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.


Pluralsight Content Team

Pluralsight C.

The Pluralsight Content Team delivers the latest industry insights, technical knowledge, and business advice. As tech enthusiasts, we live and breathe the industry and are passionate about sharing our expertise. From programming and cloud computing to cybersecurity and AI, we cover a wide range of topics to keep you up to date and ahead of the curve.

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