OpenAI rolls out GPT-5.5 and GPT-5.5 Pro with a $25,000 bio bug bounty as safety concerns rise

OpenAI has introduced GPT-5.5 and GPT-5.5 Pro, new models it says will power updates across ChatGPT and its developer-facing APIs.

The release underscores a familiar tension in generative AI: sharper reasoning and tool use can also widen the risk surface.

According to OpenAI’s technical documentation, the GPT-5.5 line is designed to be more capable on difficult problem-solving and multi-step tasks that involve interacting with software tools.

The company also flags that those same improvements can increase the chance the model helps users in sensitive domains if safeguards fail.

Why the $25,000 bounty matters?

To pressure-test its defenses, OpenAI launched a GPT-5.5 Bio Bug Bounty that offers awards of up to $25 000 for successful jailbreaks in a controlled challenge.

The company says submissions will focus on whether participants can bypass protections when prompted with a set of biosafety questions.

OpenAI set an application window running from April 23 to June 22, 2026, and tied the effort to Codex Desktop as the test environment. The bounty reflects a broader industry shift toward incentives and external red-teaming as model capabilities accelerate.

Rivals face similar security scrutiny

The launch lands amid heightened attention on AI-generated code quality and exploitability, with security researchers increasingly auditing model outputs for unsafe patterns.

Competing systems from Anthropic and Google are often benchmarked on similar dimensions, including tool use and the likelihood of producing vulnerable code.

OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 system card frames the company’s approach as a mix of model-level training, policy constraints and product guardrails, paired with ongoing evaluations.

Whether that combination holds up under real-world misuse attempts may be determined less by marketing claims and more by what independent testers find next.