OpenAI staffer maps out which of GPT-5.6 Sol's five reasoning levels fits which task complexity
Quick Answer
OpenAI's Vaibhav Srivastav outlines the five reasoning levels of GPT-5.6 Sol, recommending users start at lower levels for simpler tasks.
Quick Take
OpenAI's Vaibhav Srivastav outlines the five reasoning levels of GPT-5.6 Sol, recommending users start at lower levels for simpler tasks. Higher levels, like 'Max' and 'Ultra', allow for more complex problem-solving but require more time and tokens. The transition from GPT-5.5 may necessitate starting one level lower, complicating user experience amid ongoing development of Sol's Pro tiers.
Key Points
- GPT-5.6 Sol has five reasoning levels: Light, Low, Medium, High, and xhigh.
- Max allows extended focus on a single problem, while Ultra uses multiple sub-agents.
- Higher reasoning levels consume more tokens and require more time.
- Users transitioning from GPT-5.5 should start one level lower than their previous usage.
- OpenAI's goal of simplifying ChatGPT remains unfulfilled, with Pro tiers still absent.
📖 Reader Mode
~1 min readOpenAI employee Vaibhav Srivastav explains when each of GPT-5.6 Sol's five reasoning levels fits. "Light" and "Low" are for quick, clear-cut tasks. "Medium" works for planning and analysis. "High" and "xhigh" handle complex, multi-step work or "careful verification."
"Max" and "Ultra" work differently: "Max" lets a model spend more time on a single problem. "Ultra" deploys multiple sub-agents in parallel, each tackling a different part of a task. Higher levels take more time and burn through more tokens. Srivastav recommends starting low and only scaling up when needed. The levels don't map to GPT-5.5's tiers, Srivastav says, and anyone switching over should start one level lower than they're used to.
None of this brings OpenAI any closer to its stated goal of making ChatGPT so simple that "almost no interface" is needed. On top of that, Sol's Pro tiers are still missing. Those leaked earlier in a genomics benchmark paper. Even ambitious users will struggle to pick the right level without running their own benchmarks, though the setup may help OpenAI collect usage data.
— Originally published at the-decoder.com
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