OpenAI introduces ‘Ultrafast,' a new mode that makes GPT 5.6 Sol work at 14x the speed

In Brief Posted: 12:22 PM PDT · August 13, 2026 Image Credits: Olivier Morin/AFP / Getty Images Lucas Ropek OpenAI introduces ‘Ultrafast,’ a new mode that makes GPT 5.6 Sol work at 14x the speed If you’ve ever found yourself wishing that ChatGPT was a little bit quicker on the uptake, OpenAI seems to be answering your prayers. The AI lab has rolled out a new mode called Ultrafast , which it says is designed to seriously accelerate the pace at which its latest and most powerful model, GPT 5.6 Sol , accomplishes its work. The company says that Ultrafast can work at 14x the speed of standard processing, delivering up to 750 output tokens — such tokens represent the distinct pieces of text generated by an LLM when it interacts with a human — per second. “Until now, getting real-time speed typically meant choosing a smaller or more specialized model,” the company said in a blog post on Thursday. “Ultrafast points to progress in a new direction: more useful work per second.” OpenAI’s competitors, like Anthropic, have similarly launched accelerated versions of their models. Claude has fast mode , although it doesn’t deliver the kind of speed that OpenAI is offering here. OpenAI suggests that this high-octane version of GPT 5.6 Sol can be deployed across a number of different corporate workflows, most notably incident response, customer service and support, financial market analysis, and e-commerce, among other relevant areas. Ultrafast, which is currently being released in preview, is being powered by OpenAI’s partnership with chipmaker Cerebras. Currently, that preview is only being made available to a small group of customers, although OpenAI says that it will expand access to the feature as “capacity grows.” Topics AI , AI , Anthropic , ChatGPT , Claude , OpenAI October 13 – 15 San Francisco Scale faster. Grow your portfolio. Gain practical expertise. No matter your goal, Disrupt can empower you. Save up to $300 toda y! REGISTER NOW Newsletters See More Subscribe for the industry’s biggest tech news TechCrunch Daily News Every weekday and Sunday, you can get the best of TechCrunch’s coverage. TechCrunch Mobility TechCrunch Mobility is your destination for transportation news and insight. Startups Weekly Startups are the core of TechCrunch, so get our best coverage delivered weekly. StrictlyVC Provides movers and shakers with the info they need to start their day. No newsletters selected. Subscribe By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . Related AI IBM partners with OpenAI to bolster enterprise AI push Jagmeet Singh 3 minutes ago AI Anthropic set AI agents loose on the same task. They started a turf war. Rebecca Bellan 55 minutes ago AI OpenAI hires new CRO as executive shake-up continues Tim Fernholz 2 hours ago Latest in AI In Brief OpenAI introduces ‘Ultrafast,’ a new mode that makes GPT 5.6 Sol work at 14x the speed Lucas Ropek 20 seconds ago AI IBM partners with OpenAI to bolster enterprise AI push Jagmeet Singh 3 minutes ago AI Anthropic set AI agents loose on the same task. They started a turf war. Rebecca Bellan 55 minutes ago