LLM/AI Changelog

We’re making an update to GPT-5.2 Instant in ChatGPT and the API that improves response style and quality.Users should notice responses that are more measured and grounded in tone, in a way that’s more contextually appropriate to the conversation. The model also tends to output clearer, more relevant answers to advice-seeking and how-to questions, more reliably placing the most important info upfront.

We’re beginning to roll out a test for ads in ChatGPT in the U.S. for logged-in adults on the Free and Go tiers. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education plans do not have ads. The test will be a subset of users to start. We will expand over the coming weeks as we learn from this test.ChatGPT’s answers are generated independently from advertising. Answers are optimized based on what’s most helpful to you. When you see an ad, they are always clearly labeled as sponsored and visually separated from the organic answer.Ads are shown using information that stays within ChatGPT and is not shared with advertisers. This includes what you’re discussing, how you interact with ads (such as ads you hide or engage with), and your past chats and memories, if you have ads personalization enabled. You’re in control of this experience: you can dismiss ads, share feedback, learn how and why you’re being shown an ad, delete your ad data with one tap, and manage ad personalization at any time.Advertisers never see your chats or personal details and receive only aggregated performance information, like impressions and clicks. During the test, ads do not appear in chats about sensitive topics or regulated topics, including health, mental health, or politics, and are not shown to users who tell us or we predict are under 18.

Jan 10, 2026:We lowered the Standard and Light thinking time as we observed users prefer faster responses. As part of this update, theExtendedthinking setting for GPT-5.2 was unintentionally changed to be lower which we have now fixed.February 3, 2026:We made another small reduction to Standard thinking time based on testing.February 4, 2026:We’re restoring theExtendedthinking level for GPT-5.2 Thinking to its prior setting, correcting the inadvertent reduction from January. Extended is now back to its prior level.We periodically adjust the default thinking time for our reasoning models. These changes are based on ongoing experiments to find the best balance between answer quality and response speed for users.Thethinking level toggleintroduced in September 2025 gives users more choice beyond Standard, allowing them to select the right thinking level for their question—whether they want lighter, faster responses or more extended reasoning when depth and accuracy matter more.Thinking time is not directly comparable across different models. Each model is tuned independently to what works best for users. We’ll continue to adjust these settings as models evolve, and will keep giving users clear controls when there are meaningful tradeoffs to choose from.

Responses in ChatGPT are now more visual and easier to scan.For everyday questions, responses may include at-a-glance visuals—like checking your team’s latest stats, converting units, or doing a quick calculation.Answers now also highlight important people, places, products, and ideas. You can tap any highlight to open a side panel with key facts and trusted sources, making it easy to understand the context without asking follow-up questions.Rolling out globally on iOS, Android, web.

We’re updating GPT-5.2 Instant’s default personality to be more conversational and better at adapting its tone contextually, making exchanges feel smoother and more natural. You can still select a different base style and tone for ChatGPT, along with tuning characteristics like warmth and emoji use, within the Personalization menu in settings.

When reference chat history is enabled, ChatGPT can now more reliably find specific details from your past chats when you ask. Any past chat used to answer your question now appears as a source so you can open and review the original context.This memory improvement is now available for Plus and Pro users globally.

Shopping research is a new interactive experience that helps you find the right products without doing all the research yourself. Describe what you need—like a quiet cordless vacuum for a small apartment, a gift for a four‑year‑old who loves art, or a way to choose between three bikes—and ChatGPT will ask clarifying questions, research deeply across the internet, review quality sources, and build on ChatGPT’s understanding of you from past conversations and memory to return a personalized buyer’s guide with options, tradeoffs, and links to buy.
ChatGPT learns what you like through an interactive interface allowing you to guide the research based on your real-time feedback.
Shopping research is available on ChatGPT Web, iOS, and Android for logged‑in Free, Go, Plus, and Pro users. To help with holiday shopping, we’re making usage nearly unlimited across plans through the season. To learn more, visit theblog.

We’re introducing Instant Checkout in ChatGPT and the Agentic Commerce Protocol that powers it, built with Stripe.
ChatGPT can help you find anything on the web and now with Instant Checkout, you can seamlessly buy directly from the merchant, right in chat. Starting today, U.S. ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Free users can buy directly from U.S. Etsy sellers through ChatGPT, with over 1 million Shopify merchants, like Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx and Vuori, coming soon.
Instant Checkout
Instant Checkout makes it easy to go from chat to checkout in just a few taps.
Ask ChatGPT a shopping question and it finds organic, unsponsored product results from across the web.Choose an item and ChatGPT shows where to buy, ranking merchants by factors like inventory, price, quality, primary seller status, and Instant Checkout availability.If Instant Checkout is offered, tap Buy, confirm shipping and payment details, and pay in one tap with your card on file or other express pay options.If Instant Checkout isn’t available, ChatGPT provides a direct link so you can purchase from the merchant’s site.
You’re in control at all times and give explicit confirmation to purchase. Payment goes directly from you to the merchant, not through OpenAI.Learn more about Instant Checkout.
Agentic Commerce Protocol
The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) gives merchants and developers a way to build agentic commerce experiences that work with their current systems and connect them with 700M+ weekly active users on ChatGPT.
If you’re a merchant and want to add Instant Checkout in ChatGPT, apply on ourmerchant page.We’ll be accepting and onboarding merchants on a rolling basis.
Developers can start exploring the Agentic Commerce Protocoldocumentationand example implementations onGitHub.

We’ve made further improvements to search in ChatGPT, making results more accurate, reliable, and useful.
Factuality:Fewer hallucinations, improving answer quality.Shopping:Search is better at detecting shopping intent, showing products when you want them and keeping results focused when you don’t.Formatting: Answers are better formatted for quick understanding without losing detail or quality.