OpenAI is making a major change to how it operates ChatGPT free and Go accounts. Starting next week, the company will no longer enforce rate limits on users of those accounts for prompts that involve only text. In effect, that change will allow you to talk with ChatGPT as much as you want. The company will continue to enforce separate limits for other forms of usage. For instance, adding files and images to your prompts will see you eventually hit a limit as a free or Go tier user, as will making use of image generation and ChatGPT’s recently updated voice mode.
OpenAI is also making GPT-5.6 Luna, the smallest model in its new GPT-5.6 family, the new default for Free and Go accounts. It will replace GPT-5.5 Instant, which had been the default since this past May. That change will go through this week. Users will also see a new “Think” button that will prompt GPT-5.6 Luna to take additional time to generate an answer. For text chats, free and Go users can use that feature without limit — unless you combine it with other features, in which case your usage will count against a separate limit.
If you’re feeling left out as a Plus or Pro tier user, don’t be; you’re also getting enhancements to your ChatGPT experience. OpenAI is updating GPT-5.6 Sol, its current flagship model, to optimize it for everyday conversations. In ChatGPT, the updated system “delivers more focused answers, adapts its level of detail to the question, avoids unnecessary formatting, and offers a helpful correction when simply agreeing wouldn’t be useful,” according to the company. OpenAI is also introducing a new slider (akin to Claude’s effort menu) that allows Plus and Pro users to decide how much “thought” ChatGPT puts into an answer.
Removing rate limits, even if it’s just for text chats, is a major milestone for OpenAI. The company didn’t say how it managed the feat, but given rate limits are a reflection of inference costs (the amount AI providers pay for their trained models to process data), OpenAI may have made a major advancement there. A recent report from The Information suggested the company was close to a breakthrough.
“This is a concrete step toward more abundant intelligence: making our latest models more widely available, improving the usefulness and reliability of the answers people get, and letting free users keep text chats going without a rate limit,” OpenAI said today. “Access shapes opportunity, and this update gives more people the ability to keep asking, develop an idea, and get help when they need it.”
