TL;DR

OpenAI released GPT-6.1 Terra on 26 October, a fast, lower-cost model built for computer use, visual reasoning and everyday office writing. Through the API it costs half as much as GPT-6.1 Sol or the previous GPT-5.6 Terra, and OpenAI claims a large fall in factual errors. It is available now to paying ChatGPT users and through the API.

OpenAI’s launch clip is embedded above; it also sits on our Videos page.

What Terra is for

OpenAI pitches Terra at the screen-based tasks that fill a working day: drafting proposals, reading technical drawings, filling in forms and editing video. Its example of high-volume automation is reading incoming invoices and keying the details into accounting software.

On Agents’ Last Exam, OpenAI’s benchmark of professional computer tasks, Terra at medium reasoning effort scores 15 percentage points above GPT-5.6 Terra for roughly a third of the cost, and matches GPT-6 Astra at a tenth of the price per token. At maximum effort, OpenAI says it is about nine times cheaper per task than Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5. These are the vendor’s own figures.

The factuality claim is the most relevant for business users. On OpenAI’s internal set of prompts designed to provoke errors, Terra with reasoning set low got 16.7% wrong, where GPT-5.6 Terra got 53.6% wrong. With reasoning at maximum, the figure was 4.3%.

OpenAI is clear about the limits. For the hardest coding work it still points users to Astra or Sol. Under OpenAI’s Preparedness Framework, Terra reaches the Critical level for cybersecurity, so it keeps the safeguards built for Astra.

Pricing and availability

Terra is reaching ChatGPT Work and Codex for subscribers on Edu, Enterprise, Pro and Plus plans, and developers can call it as gpt-6.1-terra. Output costs $5 per million tokens and input $1 per million, dropping to $0.05 per million when cached.

Context

Terra joins GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Astra in OpenAI’s current line-up. OpenAI positions it as the choice for speed and cost, with Sol and Astra kept for the most demanding work.

Looking Forward

For UK businesses, the interesting part is not the benchmark table but the invoice example. In our view, a model priced for bulk back-office automation could lower the cost barrier for firms weighing whether to automate routine admin. Its factuality and computer-use figures are OpenAI’s own, so anyone planning finance or admin automation should test Terra on their own documents before relying on it.