OpenAI staffer maps out which of GPT-5.6 Sol's five reasoning levels fits which task complexity

OpenAI employee Vaibhav Srivastav explained the five reasoning levels of GPT-5.6 Sol, recommending users start with lower levels and scale up as needed. The levels, which differ from GPT-5.5's tiers, include "Light" and "Low" for simple tasks, "Medium" for planning, and "High" and "xhigh" for complex work, while "Max" and "Ultra" handle extended or parallel processing. The guidance highlights ongoing complexity in OpenAI's interface, as Pro tiers remain unreleased and users may need custom benchmarks to select the appropriate level.

OpenAI staffer maps out which of GPT-5.6 Sol's five reasoning levels fits which task complexity OpenAI 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" https://the-decoder.com/openai-cofounder-envisions-almost-no-interface-future-where-nobody-learns-software-anymore/ is needed. On top of that, Sol's Pro tiers are still missing. Those leaked earlier in a genomics benchmark paper https://the-decoder.com/openai-paper-reveals-three-gpt-5-6-pro-models-breaking-with-single-top-tier-strategy/ . Even ambitious users will struggle to pick the right level without running their own benchmarks, though the setup may help OpenAI collect usage data. AI News Without the Hype – Curated by Humans Subscribe to THE DECODER for ad-free reading, a weekly AI newsletter, our exclusive "AI Radar" frontier report six times a year, full archive access, and access to our comment section. Subscribe now Srivastav via X https://x.com/reach vb/status/2075489301253488778