The unprecedented rise of language models has become one of the most important lessons in the growth and evolution of technology. One of the key players in the artificial intelligence revolution, OpenAI, has been leading the charge with its GPT series. You are here to learn about GPT 5.2 explained in simple terms within just two months of the launch of the GPT 5.1 model. It is important to know that a lot can happen in a few months in the domain of AI.
What could be the possible reason for launching another model immediately after launching the prestigious Gemini 3? OpenAI has always strived to achieve the identity of a company that delivers the best business value. Some industry reports suggest that the pressure of falling back on key benchmarks have pushed the Google team to introduce GPT 5.2 in a short span of time. This post aims to offer a detailed introduction to GPT-5.2 and its performance on different benchmarks.
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What Should You Expect in GPT-5.2?
Anyone reading this would be curious to know about the different models that you will find with GPT-5.2. You will get three models in the GPT-5.2 series, which adopt distinct approaches to delivering business value. After the official launch in December 2025, the new models are available with paid ChatGPT plans.
Users can directly access all the new models in ChatGPT and developers can make the most of GPT-5.2 API accessibility. The GPT-5.2 models are available through the OpenAI API on the ‘Chat Completions’ and ‘Responses’ endpoints. OpenAI claims that these new models can offer specific improvements in tasks that require memory, use of tools and reasoning.
An overview of the three new models in GPT-5.2 series can help you understand how they can bring more value to business workflows.
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GPT-5.2 Instant
As the name implies, GPT-5.2 Instant is tailored for faster responses and lower latency. The model has been described as more suitable for everyday tasks that require information sourcing, drafting and translation. It will be the default model that people will interact with in the GPT-5.2 series and will focus more on throughput rather than reasoning depth. The GPT-5.2 Instant model will serve as the ideal choice in tasks that require lightweight automation and faster responses without the need for heavy reasoning.
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GPT-5.2 Thinking
The GPT-5.2 Thinking model focuses more on heavy reasoning that is required for complex problems. Your search for answers to “how to use GPT-5.2” will lead you to GPT-5.2 when you have a problem that requires step-by-step reasoning. It has successfully achieved higher performance on OpenAI benchmarks for coding, long-context tasks and knowledge-work. The GPT-5.2 Thinking model can serve as the ideal pick for agentic tasks, analysis and multi-step workflows focused on accuracy.
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GPT-5.2 Pro
The flagship model of the GPT-5.2 series, the GPT-5.2 Pro, has been designed for enterprise customers. As the most expensive model in the series, the Pro model is best for high-stakes scenarios that require incremental gains in factual accuracy and reasoning quality. The Pro model is an ideal pick for environments where you cannot afford errors and need coherence throughout long contexts. You can rely on the GPT-5.2 Pro model for tasks that require complex planning, decision-support systems and workloads that call for more reliability.
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How Does GPT-5.2 Perform on Different Benchmarks?
One of the biggest complaints about GPT-5.1 was that it did not focus much on benchmark results and emphasized user experience. The direction of GPT 5.2 use cases will shift more towards achieving desired results. The performance of the new models on different benchmarks offers a glimpse of how they can be the ideal fit for various use cases.
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Daily Tasks in the Workplace
The most prominent benchmark result for the new GPT release is GDPval, which has been introduced in October 2025. GDPval helps in evaluating the performance of models in tasks that you would need in jobs, such as creating presentations and reports. The test includes questions from 44 different occupations from nine top industries that contribute to the GDP of the US.
The tasks involved in the benchmark require interaction with real work products, including videos, spreadsheets, presentations, and accounting ledgers. GPT-5.2 Pro and GPT-5.2 Thinking models have scored 74.1% and 70.9% on the GDPval benchmark.
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Long Context Reasoning Tasks
You can also notice that GPT-5.2 delivers the best performance in the MRCR v2 benchmark for long-context reasoning tasks. The GPT-5.2 Thinking model achieves an almost perfect score in this benchmark, which means that you can leverage the model for working with long documents.
The new GPT-5.2 model achieves almost 100% accuracy for long-context reasoning tasks up to 256k tokens. It implies that the model can work with around two hundred thousand words, which is the average length of novels.
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Coding Tasks
The discussions on features of GPT 5.2 explained for beginners also draw attention towards its use cases in coding tasks. One of the most notable benchmarks associated with the release of GPT-5.2 is SWE-Bench Pro. It is one of the difficult software engineering benchmarks and GPT-5.2 has achieved a score of 55.6% in the benchmark.
The SWE-Bench Pro benchmark evaluates the capabilities of a model to solve long-horizon issues from real repositories and problems that require multiple file modifications. You should also know that GPT-5.2 has scored 80% on the SWE-Bench Verified benchmark, an easier version of the SWE-Bench Pro test.
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How Much Does the GPT-5.2 Cost?
The next crucial concern for anyone curious about GPT-5.2 is the cost of the model. You can gain access to GPT-5.2 Instant model by default with paid plans of ChatGPT. In the case of GPT-5.2 Thinking, you have to pay $1.75 for one million input tokens and $14 for one million output tokens. It is important to know that you can get a 90% discount on cached inputs.
User should also capitalize on GPT-5.2 API accessibility to gain flexibility in controlling the tool integrations, reasoning effort and token budgets. You can gain access to the models through the Chat Completions API and Responses API of OpenAI with model strings.
How Does GPT-5.2 Perform Against Competitors?
The introduction to GPT-5.2 will be incomplete without mentioning how it stands before its competitors. The most notable competitors of GPT-5.2 are Gemini 3 and Claude Opus 4.5, both of which have been released recently. A comparison between GPT-5.2 and the two new models can help you find whether the new OpenAI model stands up to the expectations.
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Comparison with Gemini 3
The arrival of Gemini 3 in November 2025 grabbed headlines in the AI space with its exceptional performance on top benchmarks. It is still the top model that has aced the Humanity’s Last Exam benchmark and outperformed GPT-5.2 Pro on the GPQA Diamond benchmark. However, it is important to know that the big improvements in the performance of Gemini 3 come from its training infrastructure and mixture-of-experts architecture.
Gemini 3 relies on token-level sparse routing and leverages the custom TPU infrastructure of Google for training. As of now, GPT-5.2 is performing efficiently on benchmarks for professional work like GDPval. It shows that GPT-5.2 has concentrated its efforts on delivering value in enterprise workflows.
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Comparison with Claude Opus 4.5
Another popular model released in November, the Claude Opus 4.5, is a top contender of GPT-5.2. It combines extended thinking capabilities with stronger base intelligence to perform effectively in open-ended and software engineering tasks.
GPT-5.2 and Claude Opus 4.5 are different in their style as Opus 4.5 emphasizes on longer and more deliberate responses. The GPT-5.2 Thinking model focuses on structured outputs and use of work tools like presentations and spreadsheets.
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Final Thoughts
The emphasis on benchmark results of GPT-5.2 reveal that OpenAI has been under a lot of pressure to deliver a better model. Prior to GPT-5.2, the GPT-5.1 release was suppressed under the noise due to release of Google Gemini 3. Even the new model falls short of Gemini 3 and Claude Opus 4.5 on certain benchmarks. However, the real-world use cases of GPT-5.2 will draw a lot of attention as it focuses on enterprise use cases. Most important of all, the new OpenAI models aim to make daily work in the office more productive. Learn more about GPT-5.2 and how language models redefine the AI revolution now.
FAQs
Which companies offer official ChatGPT certification programs?
Future Skills Academy offers a professional ChatGPT certification program. The Certified ChatGPT Professional (CCGP)™ certification course by FSA stands out as the only accredited ChatGPT certification program. You can learn about use cases of ChatGPT and its applications in different industries along with ChatGPT integrations and customizing ChatGPT for different use cases.
How does GPT-5.2 perform compared to earlier models?
GPT-5.2 offers significantly better performance than earlier models with its larger context windows and better reasoning. The model stands out specifically in complex tasks that involve multistep workflows. However, it struggles to outperform other models like Gemini 3 and Claude Opus 4.5 on different benchmarks.
What are the real-world applications of GPT-5.2?
The real-world applications of GPT-5.2 will revolve around tasks that require interaction with work products, such as presentations, accounting ledgers and spreadsheets. It is also an ideal model for long-context reasoning tasks and coding tasks with exceptional performance in relevant benchmark tests.
About Author
James Mitchell is a seasoned technology writer and industry expert with a passion for exploring the latest advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and emerging technologies. With a knack for simplifying complex concepts, James brings a wealth of knowledge and insight to his articles, helping readers stay informed and inspired in the ever-evolving world of tech.
