OpenAI is delaying the public release of its next generation of AI models, GPT-5.6, at the request of Trump’s White House, the company confirmed on Friday. OpenAI said it would first share the models with a small set of customers, which will be preapproved by the US government. It will then work with the administration to slowly expand access.
OpenAI is not happy about this, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking, but believes the delay and government approval process is only temporary. In a blog post, the company said it hopes it will be able to make GPT-5.6 available to everyone in the coming weeks. OpenAI’s plans to delay its next generation of AI models at the Trump administration’s request was first reported by The Information.
“We don’t believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default,” OpenAI wrote in its blog post. “It keeps the best tools from users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders, and global partners who need them. We are taking this short-term step because we believe it is the strongest path to broader availability in the coming weeks, while we work with the Administration to develop the cyber Executive Order framework and a repeatable process for future model releases.”
Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order that aimed to address the cybersecurity concerns of powerful new AI models. The order said the White House would create a “voluntary process” for AI labs to share their models with the government 30 days ahead of a broader release. The mandate included a carve-out, saying the US government would not turn its voluntary process into a de facto licensing regime for AI model releases. But in its Friday briefing, OpenAI executives said no such voluntary framework exists yet. As a result, the frontier AI labs are in a very weird interim period, where working with the US government on your AI model launch doesn’t seem all that voluntary.
The White House is asking OpenAI to stagger the release of its AI models just two weeks after it sent an export control directive to Anthropic, which prompted the company to take its most advanced AI models offline for all customers. Anthropic’s spat with the White House is still unresolved, and some of the company’s own employees are still barred from using its most advanced AI models.
The Trump administration’s request for OpenAI and Anthropic to limit availability on their most advanced AI models creates an uncertain environment for other US AI labs. Over the last two years, the Trump administration has sought to clear regulation and red tape that could hinder America’s AI innovation and potentially hurt the country’s competitiveness with China. In recent months, however, the White House has grown increasingly concerned about the cybersecurity abilities of new AI models, and has scrambled to address the problem. A White House official tells WIRED that the administration is continuing to collaborate with frontier AI labs.
OpenAI plans to broaden the set of customers it can share GPT-5.6 with next week, including some international partners. Executives for OpenAI said that it can’t share details of how exactly the White House is approving these customers—the company just sends the US government a list and then gets feedback on it, the executives said.
OpenAI says its GPT-5.6 AI models will come in three flavors: Sol, its most capable version of the model; Terra, a middle-tier version of the model; and Luna, a fast and affordable version. The company says GPT-5.6 Sol is its most capable model yet on benchmarks testing cybersecurity, biology, and agentic abilities. Alongside these new capabilities, OpenAI says it has a “layered safeguard stack,” which aims to stop bad actors from using its AI model for cyberattacks, among other malicious behaviors.
Update 06/26/26 2:20 pm ET: This story has been updated to include comment from the White House.
