GPT Image 2.5 Flare and Sunburst sweep Artificial Analysis Image Arena at half the latency, same price
ArtificialAnlys · x · 2026-09-12
Nearly five months after GPT Image 2, OpenAI shipped GPT Image 2.5 in two variants — Flare and Sunburst — which take the top two spots on the Artificial Analysis Image Arena at the same price as GPT Image 2 ($30 per million image output tokens).
- Flare targets everyday generation: #1 on Text to Image, median generation time cut 63% (142.9s → 52.7s), leading in 5 of 9 measured capabilities with the biggest margins in Knowledge, Material, and Physics.
- Sunburst targets detailed creative work and editing: #1 on Image Editing, latency down 24% to 108.9s, with the largest gains in Composition & Framing and text/symbol edits.
- Both tested at max quality, 1024×1024 PNG, and are live via the OpenAI API, ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex.
- Rivals are far cheaper: Microsoft's MAI-Image-2.6 costs $38.90 per 1k images (a fifth as much) and Meta's Muse Image $10 per 1k while still ranking top-seven.
Related event: OpenAI's GPT Image 2.5 Tops Image Arena with Halved Latency(3 posts)→
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