Dan Shipper 📧@danshipper
BREAKING:
GPT-5.6 Sol is out—AND Codex has been merged into ChatGPT Desktop as ChatGPT Codex. This combo model and desktop app harness are the gold-standard for knowledge work in AI.
5.6 is powerful, fast, half the price of Fable, and my default for almost everything.
We’ve been testing it internally @every for about a month across coding, writing, design, and knowledge work.
Here’s our day-zero vibe check:
- An A-tier coder—but it’s not Fable. Sol scored 56/100 on our Senior Engineer benchmark compared to a 91 for Fable. I think the 56/100 undersells it, it's an excellent implementor, and very smart. But Fable just writes conceptually cleaner code and works better at the top end of task complexity.
PRO-TIP: Use GPT-5.6 as Fable's subagent for the most goated combo in AI coding.
- The best writer of the frontier models. It’s clearer and more concise than Fable or Opus 4.8, without the overexplaining or weird private language. It can one-shot marketing emails, help you workshop taglines, and explain complex concepts clearly. It's also super fast, which makes it easy to collaborate with.
- Design is better, but not top-tier. It has noticeably more taste than 5.5, but Fable and Opus 4.8 are still playing at a different level. See examples in the video and vibe check below.
- The real leap is knowledge work. Sol is the first model I’ve trusted to run whole loops of knowledge work—not just help with individual tasks. I use it to process email, surface decisions from meetings and Slack, find job candidates, scan Facebook Marketplace for furniture, and log my meals. It has shifted my job from doing the work to tending the system that does it.
- The merged app is fine. I was extremely worried about this because I love the Codex app. OpenAI was caught in an interesting position: How to make an agent orchestration app for regular ChatGPT consumers, coders, and businesses all in one app. They now split the interface between ChatGPT Work and ChatGPT Codex. They're basically the same except Work hides code. And "Chat" has been demoted to 2nd tier status for quick questions in either one.
It's not a big leap, but it's not a huge setback either. And it remains my favorite of the desktop agent orchestration apps.
Verdict:
If I really had to put my finger on it, I'd say Fable has way more big model smell. But that means it's a skill in itself to get value out of it—99% of people are still not there yet.
GPT-5.6 is almost as powerful, but is easy to use, fast, and relatively cheap. It should give you an early sense of where model work is going.
Full @every Vibe Check: every.to/vibe-check/gpt…