Tom’s Guide says OpenAI launched ChatGPT-6 Astra Thursday, describing it as the company’s latest frontier model and the successor to GPT-5.6 Sol. The outlet says Astra is designed less as a conventional chatbot upgrade and more as a system for longer, multi-step work across coding, computer use, research and other complex tasks. The key claim is not just that Astra answers prompts better. According to Tom’s Guide, the model can stay on a task for longer, plan across multiple steps, navigate websites and software, track what it is trying to accomplish, and keep iterating toward a result rather than returning every intermediate decision to the user. That would make the intended usage pattern closer to delegating a defined job than asking a sequence of standalone questions. Tom’s Guide says Astra performs better across many of the benchmarks OpenAI uses for reasoning, coding and other capabilities. The cluster does not include OpenAI’s benchmark tables, methodology or release notes, so those performance claims should be treated as reported rather than independently verified from the provided material. Access is also limited at launch, according to the report. Tom’s Guide says OpenAI is beginning the rollout with select enterprise customers before expanding availability to ChatGPT Plus, Pro and Business subscribers. The outlet reports that OpenAI has not confirmed when, or whether, Astra will become available to people using ChatGPT’s free tier. That rollout sequence matters because the first users are likely to be organizations and paid subscribers testing whether the model can handle workflows that previous ChatGPT versions could only assist with in pieces. Tom’s Guide’s framing centers on tasks such as research-heavy planning, major purchase evaluation and other jobs that require gathering information, comparing options and making repeated adjustments. The report also says OpenAI President Greg Brockman has suggested Astra’s arrival could mark the beginning of the AGI era. That is a significant characterization, but in this cluster it is a single-source report and should not be treated as a settled industry milestone. The more concrete takeaway is narrower: Tom’s Guide says OpenAI is rolling out a new GPT-6 model built for longer-running, multi-step work, but access and independent validation remain limited in the provided evidence. Who benefits: Select enterprise customers appear to get the first opportunity to test Astra, according to Tom’s Guide. Paid ChatGPT Plus, Pro and Business subscribers are next in the reported rollout. Who's exposed: Free-tier users may be left waiting, because Tom’s Guide reports that OpenAI has not confirmed whether or when Astra will reach them. Teams relying on older prompt-by-prompt workflows may also need to reassess how they evaluate model output if tasks become more autonomous.