Microsoft-backed (MSFT) OpenAI (OPENAI) has released ChatGPT 5.1, which features GPT-5.1 Instant and GPT-5.1 Thinking to provide different types of communication styles dependent on the user and the query.
GPT-5.1 Instant’s communication style is “warmer by default and more conversational.” It has improvements in following instructions and utilizes an adaptive reasoning capability before responding.
GPT-5.1 Thinking, on the other hand, “adapts its thinking time more precisely to the question—spending more time on complex problems while responding more quickly to simpler ones. In practice, that means more thorough answers for difficult requests and less waiting for simpler ones,” the company said in a blog post.
“I particularly like the improvements in instruction following, and the adaptive thinking,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said. “The intelligence and style improvements are good too.”
There is also GPT-5.1 Auto, which routes queries to whichever model is best suited for a particular case.
The new models are embedded with OpenAI’s safety mitigation protocol.
“As we noted in our recent GPT‑5 system card addendum on sensitive conversations, we have expanded the baseline safety evaluations that we conduct as part of pre-deployment safety review to include evaluations for mental health (covering situations where there are signs that a user may be experiencing isolated delusions, psychosis, or mania) and for emotional reliance (covering output related to unhealthy emotional dependence or attachment to ChatGPT),” OpenAI said.
U.S. Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) recently crafted a new bill dubbed the GUARD Act, which would ban the usage of AI companions by minors.