› OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT Images 2.6 overnight between November 4 and 5, 2026.
› By morning, I was already testing the API, running over a hundred images through the new models by the end of the day: identical prompts compared across Flare, Sunburst, and legacy 2.5, a quality ladder from low to max, sequential edit chains, comparisons against Nano Banana, FLUX, Seedream, and Qwen, plus a concrete housing estate rendered across ten video game aesthetics.
› This hub covers everything OpenAI announced, all my measured benchmarks, and direct links to deep dives.The short version: Flare is remarkably fast and renders complex text with zero typos.
› Sunburst handles intricate prompt composition best, but ran slower than its predecessor in my benchmarks.