Checking In on GPT-5.1

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Vibe Check: GPT-5.1

When someone on X pointed out how quiet the GPT-5.1 launch felt, Sam Altman replied, “Better to do it that way than the alternative, I have learned.” After GPT-5’s noisy debut—and weeks of people complaining that ChatGPT felt worse—OpenAI released 5.1 with little fanfare. Same price tier, pitched as smarter, friendlier, and better at coding and agents, but the implied message is: “We fixed it, go try it.”

Here’s how it’s landing inside Every after a few days of use.

It’s slower than GPT-5, but more comprehensive

“I think GPT 5.1 in Codex is slower (but maybe it’s only for closed testing, not sure), but it seems like a quality update where it nails more from one go and a bit better in UI work. It also gives more comprehensive and verbose overviews of its work when it’s done.”—Andrey Galko, engineer

The extra thinking time isn’t always worth it