What is new

The headline feature is animation. Images 2.6 can turn a prompt, a photo or even a rough sketch into a looping GIFa short animated image format that plays in a loop without sound, common in chats and on social media. OpenAI's examples include animated brand mascots, reaction images and storyboards for planning a video.

OpenAI also says Images 2.6 generates images 50% faster than its previous version and keeps characters, products and brand details more consistent across a series of edits. According to the company, people create 4 billion images a week across ChatGPT, Codex and the API.

Flare or Sunburst

In the API, developers pick between two models:

  • GPT-Image-2.6 Flare is the fast option. With quality set to low, OpenAI says it can return an image in as little as six seconds. It also improves layouts for posters and product images.
  • GPT-Image-2.6 Sunburst is for detailed work. It gives higher quality and more consistency between edits when quality is set to medium or high.

Three features arrive in the API with this release. Image markup, already in ChatGPT, lets you draw on an image to show exactly where a change should go. SVGa vector image format that stays sharp at any size, useful for logos and icons on websites and apps export produces files ready for websites, apps and print. And a new complexity setting controls how much the model plans before drawing: quality sets the level of detail, while complexity sets how many elements go into the scene. OpenAI recommends low complexity for quick edits and medium or high for crowded scenes.

What it costs

Flare and Sunburst have the same API prices, per million tokensthe small units of text or image data that AI models read and produce, used to measure usage and price:

  • Image input $8.00, image output $30.00, cached image input $2.00.
  • Text input $5.00, cached text input $1.25.

These are the same prices that OpenAI lists for the earlier GPT-Image-2.5 models. For a cost per picture, OpenAI points to the calculator in its image generation guide. In ChatGPT and Codex, Images 2.6 is included in every subscription plan, on desktop, mobile and the web.

What developers need to change

On June 2, OpenAI warned developers that three older image models would be removed from the API on December 1, 2026. Its deprecations page now names the replacements:

  • gpt-image-1-mini
  • gpt-image-1.5, including the dated version gpt-image-1.5-2025-12-16
  • chatgpt-image-latest

For all three, OpenAI recommends gpt-image-2.6-flare or gpt-image-2.6-sunburst instead.

If your app still calls one of these names, switch it and test the results before December 1. Flare is the closer fit for fast, cheap drafts and Sunburst for final images.

OpenAI says it describes its safety tests and protections for Images 2.6 in a separate system card.

December 1 is a busy date for developers: the same day, Google starts rerouting requests for Gemini 2.5 Pro and Flash to newer models.

Sources

Primary sources we checked for this article: