Ever asked ChatGPT to change one thing in an image, only for something else to mysteriously change too? The background looks lovely, but your product now appears to have a new logo. Cheers for that. 😂 OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Images 2.5, with improvements aimed at making image creation and editing more useful for everyday work. Here's what stands out: • More precise edits, with better preservation of the details you want to keep. • Better consistency across several rounds of changes. • Sharper detail, more natural lighting and improved layouts. • Faster generation, with OpenAI reporting up to 50% lower latency compared with Images 2.0. There are also three handy additions: Sketch lets you draw a rough idea directly in ChatGPT, templates help you start with a format such as a poster, and prompt sharing lets other people adapt your creations. For business owners, I'd start with a small, real job: a promotional graphic, a product image or a thumbnail. Try uploading a product photo and asking: “Create a square social media graphic using this product photo. Keep the product, packaging and logo unchanged. Use a clean cream background, leave space at the top for a headline, and add the exact words: ‘Meet your new favourite’.” Then ask for one change: “Change only the background to pale blue. Keep everything else the same.” Check the logo, wording and product details yourself. That's a much better test than whether the first image looks impressive! OpenAI says Images 2.5 is rolling out across all ChatGPT tiers on web, mobile and desktop. Full announcement: https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-images-2-5/ What would you try first: product photos, thumbnails, social posts or something completely different?

Alright, we've got a new ChatGPT model to play with. It's called GPT-6 Astra. I know, another model name to remember! But this one does look like a pretty big step forward. The interesting bit isn't all the benchmark scores. It's that Astra is meant to be much better at actually getting on with a job, rather than just telling you how to do it. OpenAI says it can handle multi-step tasks across browsers and everyday business tools. That includes online research, filling in forms, updating records, organising a calendar, and creating documents, spreadsheets, presentations and websites. What it can do will depend on which ChatGPT tools you have access to, of course. It should also be better at knowing when to make a sensible assumption and when it genuinely needs to ask you something. Hopefully that means less babysitting, without it charging off like an unsupervised intern with admin access. One important thing to know is that ordinary ChatGPT customers can't use it just yet. Right now, access is limited to approved organisations that apply for it. OpenAI says Astra should start rolling out to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise users over the next few days. So don't waste half an hour hunting through your settings or repeatedly refreshing the model picker. It isn't hiding from you. We just need to wait for the wider rollout. When it arrives, let's give it something more interesting than a trivia question. Give it a real job, the information it needs, and a clear idea of what "done" looks like. Then come back and tell us how it got on. What are you going to try first? Official announcement: https://openai.com/index/gpt-6-astra/