OpenAI has switched on its new ChatGPT Work agent and the GPT-5.6 model family in Australia as part of a global release, and it is using local usage figures to argue that Australians are already among the world’s heaviest paying users of the technology at work.
The company told SecurityBrief Australia that the country ranks in its top five markets by the share of weekly active consumer users on paid plans. It also said nearly 40 per cent of consumer ChatGPT messages from Australia are now classified as work-related, and that weekly usage here has risen more than 30 per cent year on year.
GPT-5.6 was released publicly on 9 July 2026, and the Australian rollout followed within days. The launch is the freshest signal yet that OpenAI wants to move ChatGPT beyond answering questions and towards finishing jobs.
What ChatGPT Work does
ChatGPT Work is an agent that operates across a user’s applications and files. According to SecurityBrief Australia, it can produce documents, spreadsheets, presentations and web apps, stay on a complex project for hours, and pull context from selected workflows and files.
It arrives through a new unified desktop app for Mac and Windows that brings Chat, Work and Codex into one place. A plugins directory connects the agent to Slack, Gmail, Google Drive, calendars and CRM systems, and the app adds an in-app browser, Computer Use and scheduled tasks.
The desktop app is available to all users, including the free tier, but the Work agent itself reaches Pro, Enterprise and Edu users first, with Plus and Business to follow. That staggered order matters: the most capable agentic features are landing with paying and institutional customers before the broader base.
Satya Tammareddy, OpenAI’s Head of Go-to-Market in Australia, framed the release around a change in behaviour. “We’re seeing a clear shift in how Australians use AI,” he told ITBrief Australia. He said Codex usage in Australia has grown more than sixfold this year, and that more than 40 per cent of local Codex requests now involve non-coding tasks, a sign the tool is spreading beyond software teams into general office work.
Three models: Sol, Terra and Luna
Underneath sits the GPT-5.6 family, split into three tiers. As TechCrunch reports, Sol is the flagship for enterprise, coding and research, Terra is the intermediate option for everyday work, and Luna is the lower-cost model.
OpenAI is pitching the release heavily on cost. Chief executive Sam Altman said Sol is “54% more token efficient on agentic coding,” a line reported by CNBC, and TechCrunch notes that on the Artificial Analysis Coding Agent Index, Sol scores just ahead of Anthropic’s Fable 5 while using less than half the output tokens and costing roughly a third less.
API pricing reflects the tiering: TechCrunch lists Sol at US$5 input and US$30 output per million tokens, Terra at US$2.50 and US$15, and Luna at US$1 and US$6. For Australian firms already budgeting for AI, per-token economics are becoming as important as raw capability.
Why it matters for Australia
OpenAI is doing something it has rarely done before: naming Australia explicitly as a lead market and backing that claim with an on-the-ground go-to-market lead and local data. That positioning is not just marketing. It signals that product decisions, support and pricing tests may increasingly be shaped by how Australian workers behave.
The work-related usage figure is the number to watch. If nearly 40 per cent of consumer messages here are already about work, then the line between personal and workplace AI has largely dissolved, often without an employer’s IT department in the loop. ChatGPT Work’s plugins directory, which reaches into Gmail, Google Drive, Slack and CRM systems, sharpens the governance question for Australian organisations bound by the Privacy Act and, in the public sector, by tightening rules on agentic AI.
The competitive stakes are also clear. As Forbes Australia notes, the launch follows Anthropic’s Claude Cowork and intensifies a contest among OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce to own the autonomous workplace agent. Australian buyers, many of whom already run Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, now face overlapping agent offers competing for the same documents, inboxes and calendars.
For the local labour market, an agent that can carry a project for hours and turn an idea into a finished spreadsheet or deck changes what “entry-level” knowledge work looks like. The productivity upside is real, but so is the pressure on roles built around exactly those tasks.
The next test is adoption inside regulated Australian sectors, from banks to government departments, where procurement teams will want answers on data residency, auditability and where the agent’s actions are logged before they let it touch a CRM. OpenAI’s top-five ranking gives it momentum here; whether that converts into signed enterprise and government contracts, rather than enthusiastic individual users, will decide how much the Australian frame is worth.
Sources: SecurityBrief Australia, ITBrief Australia, Forbes Australia, TechCrunch, CNBC.
