GPT-6.2 Is Not Out Yet — Here Is the Evidence People Are Reading

The model has not been released. GPT-6.2 does not appear in OpenAI’s public model catalog as of November 7, 2026, and no announcement names it. Every claim about it traces back to four things: identifiers that appeared briefly in the API, usage stats inside Codex, a screenshot of a model list, and prediction market odds. Those are not equivalent, and treating them as equal is how the last round of rumours went wrong.

Is it available right now?

No. The current public lineup is gpt-6-astra, gpt-6.1-sol, gpt-6.1-terra and gpt-6-luna. There is no catalog entry, no changelog entry and no docs page.

A fact-check published October 18, 2026 makes the reason for caution concrete: the widely shared rumour listed “GPT-6.1 Sol” as an upcoming model four weeks after OpenAI had already shipped it. A leak that mixes shipped and unshipped models was verified by nobody.

What is the actual evidence?

Four signals, ranked by how much they carry alone.

Signal	What was observed	How strong
API identifiers	rc-ada-or-vm and rc-ada-sh-vm appeared in the model list, then were pulled within minutes; callers who got in received 503 errors	Strongest. Model IDs on the production gateway are how OpenAI stages every prior release
Codex usage stats	gpt-6.2-astra visible in per-user usage, reportedly near 20% of internal Codex traffic	Moderate. Requires trusting user screenshots
Model list screenshot	gpt-6.2-betelgeuse visible in a shared picker	Weak. One unauthenticated image
Benchmark chart	An unnamed “Internal Model” scoring 87.5% on BenchCAD 2.0	Moderate. OpenAI’s own chart, but nothing labels it 6.2

The rc prefix means release candidate. The vm suffix is the part worth reading: or-vm looks like orchestration handling task decomposition, sh-vm like a sandbox that runs commands. A dual-VM layer wired into the model points at long-horizon agent work, not a chat upgrade.

If you want to check the next claim yourself, run the sources in this order. The public catalog and changelog are the only two places that can settle the question: an unlisted model is not a released model, whatever a screenshot shows. Production API identifiers come next, because they are issued by the gateway itself rather than by a person reporting it. That is why an identifier that appeared on the production gateway and was withdrawn minutes later outranks a carefully cropped image — the gateway cannot be edited by whoever shared the image.

Screenshots of usage panels and picker lists come last. They are easy to capture and impossible to authenticate after the fact, which is why a shared image of GPT-6.2 in a picker carries less weight than an identifier that appeared and was withdrawn within minutes. Market odds rank below all four: they price a date, not a product. A market can be right about the timing of a launch that never had a name attached to it, and the October rumour is the cleanest example of that distinction. For contrast, GPT Images 2.6 is what a shipped OpenAI release looks like — an announcement, a catalog entry and a docs page, none of which exist here.

What has OpenAI shipped this fall?

Release pace explains why the rumour keeps restarting. A family model has landed roughly every three to four weeks.

Date	Event	Status
September 3	GPT-6 Astra	Released
September 22	GPT-6 Sol and Luna	Released
September 28	GPT-6.1 Astra	Cancelled after safety review
September 29	GPT-6.1 Sol	Released
October 7	GPT-6 with Intelligent UI in ChatGPT	Released
October 17	Three Aurora Alpha identifiers registered	Unconfirmed
October 26	GPT-6.1 Terra	Released
November 7	GPT-6.2	Not released

Astra is now the oldest model in the family: it launched September 3, its 6.1 refresh was cancelled, and Sol and Terra both moved on. That gap, not the leaks, is why a new Astra build is expected.

Astra or Betelgeuse?

The rumours describe two products under one version number.

Astra is the one with evidence: Codex usage stats, market odds, and the fact that it is the only GPT-6 model still on version 6. If a single model ships, this is it.

Betelgeuse appears only in one screenshot, with an attached claim of a ten-trillion-parameter parent model. No benchmark, API response or OpenAI document supports that count. Treat it as a name that might exist attached to a spec that does not.

A third, Sol, exists only inside prediction market questions and has no leak behind it at all.

When will it be released?

Nobody outside OpenAI knows. The only quantified expectations are on prediction markets, updated November 3, 2026.

Market	Question	Deadline	Odds
Polymarket	Next Astra model by	November 15, 2026	80%
Polymarket	Next Astra model by	November 30, 2026	91%
Polymarket	Next Astra model by	December 31, 2026	98%
Manifold	Any GPT-6.2 by	November 16, 2026	79%
Manifold	Any GPT-6.2 by	December 1, 2026	85%

An 80% call on a two-week window is a market opinion, not a schedule. The October 18 rumour promised a launch within 24 hours and nothing shipped for three weeks.

What should you use instead of waiting?

The shipped tiers, not a future one. gpt-6.1-terra is newest and pairs visual reasoning with computer use, gpt-6.1-sol is the cost-efficient professional tier, and gpt-6-astra is now the least differentiated.

Before paying for a refresh, run the arithmetic on what you already have. Our breakdown of whether Opus 5.5 is really 40% cheaper shows how a lower per-token price can still cost more per finished task — the same trap applies to any upgrade bought on headline numbers. For prompt-driven media work that does not need a frontier model, the Tarko AI review covers where today’s tooling stops being the bottleneck.

Frequently asked questions

Is it released? No. As of November 7, 2026 it is not in the model catalog and OpenAI has not announced it.

Where did the name come from? gpt-6.2-astra in Codex usage stats, gpt-6.2-betelgeuse in a model list screenshot, and API identifiers rc-ada-or-vm and rc-ada-sh-vm pulled minutes after appearing.

What does the rc prefix mean? Release candidate — the same prefix OpenAI used to stage earlier models on the production gateway.

Will it ship as Astra? Most likely. Astra is the only GPT-6 model still on version 6 after its 6.1 refresh was cancelled.

Is Betelgeuse a ten-trillion-parameter model? The figure comes from one unverified screenshot. Nothing published supports it.

When will it come out? Unknown. Markets put roughly 80% on a release by mid-November 2026, but the same markets gave short odds to an October launch that did not happen.

Sources

• OpenAI, Introducing GPT-6.1 Terra, October 26, 2026
• OpenAI API model catalog and changelog, checked November 7, 2026 — no entry
• aiidelist.com, GPT-6.2 Astra and GPT-6.1 Luna Leak: Fact Check, October 18, 2026
• 36kr, Mysterious “Dual-Model” Briefly Surfaces on OpenAI API, November 6, 2026
• overchat.ai, GPT-6.2 Release Date, updated November 3, 2026
• Reuters and OpenAI confirmation, September 28, 2026 — 6.1 Astra cancellation

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Published November 7, 2026. Last updated November 7, 2026.