Sam Altman apologizes for ‘messy’ GPT-6 Astra rollout that’s locked out paying users
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has apologized for a 'messy' rollout of the new GPT-6 Astra model, which left many paying subscribers without access. The staggered release prioritized enterprise customers, leading to frustration among individual users on premium plans.
Why it matters
The incident underscores the challenges tech companies face in managing user expectations and infrastructure capacity during high-profile AI product launches.
Just hours after OpenAI launched GPT-6 Astra, CEO Sam Altman was already apologizing for what he describes as a “messy rollout” after paying users expecting access to the new frontier model were left waiting.
The company hailed the model as a “generational leap in capability” on Thursday and described it as the start of “the AGI era,” a fuzzy and poorly-defined term tech executives nevertheless insist on using to promote their products. It said Astra would roll out to some enterprise customers — specifically those with access to its Daybreak cybersecurity platform — that day. This would expand to include all Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users, as well as through the OpenAI API, Microsoft Azure, and AWS Bedrock, over the next few days.
Also covering this story
7 other newsrooms covered this event. We read each version separately.
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