ChatGPT Images 2.5

Not officially. As of September 2026 OpenAI has not announced a model by that name, and no matching id appears in the OpenAI API changelog, the documentation, or the ImageModel type in the openai-python and openai-node SDKs, which still end at gpt-image-2 alongside the chatgpt-image-latest alias. What does exist is evidence of pre-release testing: two anonymous checkpoints, mona-lisa-1 and luna-lisa-alpha, appeared in Arena battles during August 2026. This page collects what is known and updates when OpenAI announces something.

There is no announced date. The one usable signal is the pattern from the last launch: three anonymous checkpoints ran on Arena around April 5 and 6, 2026, and GPT Image 2 shipped on April 21, roughly fifteen days later. Applying that gap to luna-lisa-alpha, which surfaced around August 19, points at early September 2026. OpenAI's DevDay on September 29, 2026 is the next scheduled stage moment. Both are inferences from precedent, not schedules.

Unresolved. The naming precedent cuts toward a point release: gpt-image-1.5 shipped in December 2025 as an interim quality bump between gpt-image-1 and gpt-image-2, so a 2.5 would fit the established rhythm. A larger jump would more likely carry a whole number. Community discussion has floated 2.5, 3, a mini variant, and a silent dated snapshot under the existing gpt-image-2 id. None of these appear in any OpenAI source yet.

Three themes recur in reports from pre-release testing: finer typographic control at small sizes, more convincing texture under harsh lighting, and better consistency across a chain of edits to the same image. A more recent knowledge cutoff than GPT Image 2's December 2025 has also been mentioned. All four are qualitative, single-source, and unverified. Nothing here should be read as a specification.

Two anonymous model checkpoints that surfaced in LM Arena's blind battle mode during August 2026, on August 9 and around August 19. Neither appeared on a public leaderboard, and neither carried any OpenAI provenance: no watermark, no tokenizer match, no Arena attribution. Both were reported by the same account. The alpha suffix on the second suggests further candidates may run before anything ships. OpenAI has said nothing about either.

It separates two tiers. The verifiable parts are the GPT Image 2 launch record, the SDK and changelog contents, the gpt-image-1.5 precedent, and the DevDay date. The unverifiable parts are the capability reports, which trace to a single account posting about anonymous Arena checkpoints. Everything in the second tier is marked as reported or expected throughout. The page will be rewritten against the official announcement when there is one.