#222: GPT-5.6, Government Staggers AI Model Releases, Agents Are Transforming Work & Growing Data Center Backlash

**Paul Roetzer** (0:00)
If you concentrate power, the most powerful models in the world, into a select group of 10, 20, 50, 100 companies, those are already the most powerful people and companies in the world. What happens when you give powerful people more power? Not great things for democracies. Welcome to The Artificial Intelligence Show, the podcast that helps your business grow smarter by making AI approachable and actionable. My name is Paul Roetzer. I'm the Founder and CEO of SmarterX and Marketing AI Institute, and I'm your host. Each week, I'm joined by my co-host and SmarterX Chief Content Officer, Mike Kaput. As we break down all the AI news that matters and give you insights and perspectives that you can use to advance your company and your career. Join us as we accelerate AI literacy for all.
Welcome to Episode 222 of The Artificial Intelligence Show. I'm your host, Paul Roetzer, along with my co-host, Mike Kaput. We're recording on Monday, June 29th, 9 AM Eastern Time.
Who knows, Mike might get some new models, might get new models delayed by the government, might get the government re-releasing models. Stay with us. Who knows these days, but I think there's going to be a lot of model news this week.
Usually, what happens at the end of these, as Mike's going through the product and funding news, I'm usually scanning on X to see if any major breaking news has happened. It would not surprise me if we got some news because we've got a short week with the 4th of July in the US, so we're going to have to cram all the news into like three days this week, so we'll see what happens. All right. Today's episode is brought to us by SiteImprove. Here's something worth paying attention to. AI Search is already changing who gets found and most brands aren't ready for it. SiteImprove is the agentic content intelligence platform that helps marketing teams track, optimize, and prove performance across both traditional and AI-driven search. Think of it as your visibility layer for the new search era. Grab a free AEO check at siteimprove.com/aipod.
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All right. We kick off every weekly episode with an AI Pulse, where we recap the responses from our informal poll each week. So this week, we're looking at the questions from episode 221 We said, as AI usage climbs, companies are starting to watch the bill. How is your organization handling AI costs? 43% said watching closely, but no limits yet. 29% honestly, no idea what we're actually spending. I like the honesty. 24% starting to set caps or budgets on usage, and then a very small amount spending freely. We want everyone using AI more. The second question from last week's Pulse was Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella argues that as AI gets more powerful, human skills get more valuable, not less. Do you agree? 55% true for some roles, not others. 31% yes, judgment and direction are the scarce thing right now. 15% no, AI is steadily eating what made humans valuable.
And then nobody was not sure on that one, so everybody actually answered. All right, so for the first main topic, as of Friday morning, I think, Mike, we had the story was the Trump administration prevents the release of another frontier model. And then I think it was Friday. We then got the plans for the release of GPT 5.6. So I had predicted on episode 221, we might get multiple models last week. And then we got into like Thursday or Friday. It's like, oh, it looks like the government may slow roll all of these models. And so we did get a preview of a new model. And I guess we'll start there this week.

**Mike Kaput** (4:54)
Yes, Paul. So this past week, OpenAI previewed its next generation GPT 5.6 model family. There are three models under a new naming system. So they have a model called Sol, S-O-L. This is their flagship model. There's a model Terra, T-E-R-R-A, a balanced model for everyday work, and Luna, a fast, low-cost option. OpenAI calls Sol its strongest model yet with improved agentic capabilities in coding, biology and cybersecurity. There's also a new effort level of max reasoning and a new ultra mode that uses subagents to accelerate complex work. But as you alluded to, the bigger story here, not only getting these awesome new models or previews of them, but how they're being released. Because instead of a normal launch, OpenAI is starting with a limited preview for a small group of trusted partners, reportedly around 20 organizations whose participation was approved by the US government. Available first through the API and Codex before any broader rollout, OpenAI came out and said they took this step at the US government's request. The company previewed the models and their capabilities to the administration ahead of launch and agreed to a phased release while it works with the White House on a cyber executive order framework and a repeatable process for future model releases. Now, this all traces back to what we've been covering all through the month of June. Back on June 2nd, President Trump signed an executive order that asks AI companies to voluntarily give the government up to 30 days of pre-release access to models with advanced cyber capabilities. Reporting indicates Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick personally called Sam Altman to warn against releasing GPT-56 publicly without government sign off first. This of course follows the ongoing saga where the government levied export controls that forced Anthropic to take its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models offline.