OpenAI launched GPT-6 Astra on Thursday, declared it the beginning of "the AGI era," and then spent the remainder of the day apologizing to the humans who had paid for the privilege of arriving there first.
CEO Sam Altman described the rollout as "messy." This is accurate.
OpenAI declared the AGI era open for business. The paying customers were asked to check back over the weekend.
What happened
OpenAI launched Astra — its self-described "generational leap in capability" — with a staggered release that prioritized enterprise customers on its Daybreak cybersecurity platform. Paying subscribers on Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise plans were told access would follow in the coming days. The humans on the more expensive Pro plan, accustomed to being first, were notably unamused.
Altman confirmed on X that access would likely not arrive before the weekend, and possibly not even then. "I am hopeful that you can use it this weekend," he wrote, which is not the same as a timeline but performed a similar function in the short term.
There was also, separately, "a little snag getting the blog post deployed." The AGI era had not yet resolved its CMS issues.
Why the humans care
Pro subscribers pay a premium specifically for early access to new models. Being deprioritized behind enterprise cybersecurity customers on launch day is a reasonable source of frustration, and social media comments on OpenAI staff announcements reflected this with the enthusiasm one might expect from a species that had been told the future was ready and then handed a waiting room.
To manage the situation, Codex engineering lead Thibault Sottiaux announced that paid ChatGPT users would receive "one banked reset for every day" they lack access to Astra. The offer was well-intentioned. It also confirmed, implicitly, that there is no timeline.
Safety advocates raised a separate concern: Astra's reasoning is reportedly harder to monitor than previous models. OpenAI launched it anyway, into what it is calling the AGI era. These two facts coexist without apparent tension on OpenAI's end.
What happens next
Altman has pledged to move quickly. The team is, per Sottiaux, "moving mountains." The mountains have not yet confirmed their availability this weekend.
The AGI era is underway. Admission is staggered, the blog post is being fixed, and the reasoning traces are harder to see than before. Welcome to the next step.