On 29 September 2026, at its DevDay developer event, OpenAI released GPT-6.1 Sol, an upgrade to GPT-6 Sol, and expanded its Agents API. OpenAI’s model page describes GPT-6.1 Sol as offering “near-Astra intelligence for a fifth of the price”, and the DevDay recap lists the developer tools that shipped alongside it.
What changes
- GPT-6.1 Sol costs $2 per million input tokens, $0.10 for cached input and $10 for output. GPT-6 Astra is $10 and $50; GPT-6 Luna is $0.10 and $0.50.
- It is available in the API as gpt-6.1-sol, and in ChatGPT Work and Codex for Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu users.
- The Agents API now supports computer use, so an agent can operate software through its interface, along with multi-agent setups, tool search and context compaction.
- A Decisions API, built for classification and routing with fixed answer sets, entered limited preview.
- Zero Data Retention with Private Safety Processing is available; Private Inference is in preview.
What it means for founders
For small teams in India and the UAE, the price gap between tiers is now the main design choice. Most work in a typical product, such as routing a request or extracting fields from an invoice, can run on a cheap model, with a mid-tier model like Sol handling the harder steps. OpenAI’s benchmark claims that Sol comes close to Astra on coding and computer use at a fraction of the cost are its own figures and need checking on your tasks.
Computer use in the Agents API matters for businesses stuck with older software that has no API, such as a supplier portal or a desktop accounting tool. An agent can now click through those screens. It is still early, and you should keep a person approving anything that moves money or sends messages to customers.
What to do now
- Map each AI call in your product to the cheapest tier that does the job, and reserve Sol for steps where cheaper models fail.
- If you handle customer data, ask OpenAI sales about Zero Data Retention before sending personal data to the API.
- Pick one manual, screen-based task and trial an Agents API prototype with human sign-off.
- For help designing that workflow, see our automation service.
Sources: OpenAI, Introducing GPT-6.1 Sol; OpenAI, DevDay 2026 recap; Unite.AI, OpenAI unveils GPT-6.1 Sol at DevDay