Hey there, 

Last week, OpenAI released their long-awaited GPT-6 Astra to a select group of trusted testers. This week, we got our hands on this new model and could see the incredible tasks Astra was able to complete. We’ll explore in detail what makes GPT-6 different, some of the wildest things it created, and how it compares to Claude and Gemini. 

What makes Astra different: it uses the software for you

In the past, chatbots could only explain how to complete a task that required an external tool like Unity or Premiere. They were limited to writing out explanations and couldn’t actually finish a task for you. So if you asked it to build a 3D model, it would explain what you needed to do to create it in Blender. But GPT-6 Astra is different. It can use these tools for you and actually build models in Blender or edit videos in Premiere. It can open the menus, drag the objects, write its own code, and even check its own work to ensure accuracy. So now instead of a step-by-step guide, you’ll get a finished product. 

OpenAI refers to this ability as computer use and it's what makes Astra so special. Aside from this powerful ability, GPT-6 also has some of the highest scores on browsing, coding, cybersecurity, and professional benchmarks. Currently GPT-6 is only available through the paid plans (Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise) with no release date for free users.  

What people are building with it

The last week has seen some awesome demos of what Astra can do. One of the most impressive examples comes from Ammaar Reshi, who leads product and design for Google AI Studio. He used Astra to port Windows versions of iconic AAA games like Skyrim, Age of Empires 2, and more running on his iPad. Astra created unique touch controls for each game and was able to hit 60 fps in some cases. While this alone is a fun and impressive example, it gets even crazier. At one point, Ammaar told Astra “when I wake up I want Batman: Arkham City running on my iPad”, and while he slept, the model used screen mirroring by itself to watch its own progress and make fixes. 

The examples only get more interesting from there and go well beyond gaming. One user created a 3D map of a human ankle to help him understand a medical diagnosis. He can look at the skeleton or just the muscles and see a detailed overlay that includes clickable labels.  

How it stacks up against the others

The obvious question whenever a new model gets released is, how does this compare to the models I already use? GPT-6’s main selling point is computer use, where it operates websites and software to finish tasks for you. But how does it compare when looking at standard reasoning tests? Astra can compete with other frontier models, but doesn’t beat them across the board. Fable 5.1, which we talked about last week, still outperforms it on at least one major reasoning benchmark. Currently Google doesn’t really have a model that's capable of beating GPT-6 but 3.8 Flash isn’t really meant to. 

The main tradeoff of GPT-6 is price. Astra can be expensive to run and is comparable to Anthropic’s top tier models. So the real deciding factor for choosing a model should be the task. If you’re doing research or asking a question, using Fable might make more sense. If you’re completing a task and want AI to do the heavy lifting, then Astra is probably the best choice. 

My Thoughts

This is the first time I’ve ever felt that the idea of AI “doing work for you” has seemed real. Having a model that can open a tool it wasn’t specifically trained on and figure it out in real-time is such a huge step forward. GPT-6 doesn’t feel like just another release but instead like a real milestone in AI. Despite its incredible capabilities, I still wouldn’t call it AGI. I would say that this model feels like the closest thing we’ve gotten but still falls short of that lofty title. What I keep coming back to is the shift this marks in AI. We’re watching AI shift from finding and explaining things to just doing it for you. I’ve never used Blender before and now I have an AI model that can do it for me. While I still don’t see Astra fully replacing experts, it is enabling people to create projects that weren’t feasible two weeks ago.