GPT Image 2.6 sweeps image leaderboards: Flare ~2x faster, Sunburst takes #1
ArtificialAnlys · x · 2026-11-07
Artificial Analysis benchmarked OpenAI's GPT Image 2.6 (released Nov 4 in ChatGPT, Codex and API), which takes #1 and #2 on both AA-Image-T2I v2.1 and AA-Image-Editing v2.1. GPT Image 2.6 Flare is nearly twice as fast as 2.5 Flare (median T2I time down from 55s to 30s) with slightly better quality, matching 2.5 Sunburst's quality in a quarter of the time. GPT Image 2.6 Sunburst is slower (2m15s per image) but takes the top spot, with biggest gains in Reasoning, Text Rendering, Lighting and Material, and is strongest in UIUX Design. Both models add animated GIF and SVG output plus a complexity setting. Pricing is unchanged at $30/1M output tokens ($0.21 per 1024x1024 max-quality image) — roughly 6x the cost of Nano Banana 2.1, the top-ranked rival at #6.
Related event: GPT Image 2.6 Tops Image Leaderboards in Generation and Editing(2 posts)→
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