GoKawiilA lot has changed in the AI industry in the four months since OpenAI released ChatGPT Images 1.5. We've seen a heated race to build agentic tools, an unprecedented deal with the Pentagon and unending AI slop.
Now, OpenAI is back in the generative media game. The company announced on Tuesday that it's releasing ChatGPT Images 2, its next-generation image model.
ChatGPT Images 2 is meant to create text-heavy designs, like in this matcha advertisement and fake magazine cover. OpenAI/Compiled by CNET
It may seem strange that OpenAI is releasing a new image model just a month after announcing the shuttering of its once-viral Sora AI video app in order to focus on building enterprise-ready "core products." But it's clear from how the new model was built that OpenAI isn't backtracking on that goal.
ChatGPT Images 2 is designed to produce text-heavy images, including infographics, scientific posters, study guides and marketing materials. The days of weird Sora videos and Studio Ghibli-inspired memes are over.
Now, the company is building AI that can do what it calls "economically valuable creative tasks."
"The aperture and use cases for visual intelligence just expand so broadly, and we believe that this is so critical to ChatGPT's vision for developing your own personal assistant, because your creative assistant is a huge part of who you are as an individual," Adele Li, product lead for ChatGPT Images, told reporters in a press briefing.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET's parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
In these examples, you can see how much better ChatGPT Images 2 is at rendering legible text. OpenAI/Compiled by CNET
OpenAI has been chasing the dream of a super app, a one-stop shop for all things AI, built out of its Codex platform. ChatGPT Images 2 is bringing the creative piece of that puzzle.
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