GPT 5.5 just did what no other model could

In this mini episode, I break down OpenAI’s new GPT 5.5 and GPT 5.5 Pro after weeks of early testing. I walk through three real jobs I threw at the model: building an app for me to teach my second grader more advanced subtraction concepts, tackling a tech debt problem in the ChatPRD codebase, and hacking into a proprietary Bluetooth pixel display that every other model had failed me on. My verdict: higher intelligence, better efficiency, and genuinely autonomous long-running loops that change what I think is worth tackling. What you’ll learn: - How I think about GPT 5.5 Pro’s pricing vs engineering time, and when I believe the “intelligence tax” is worth paying - Why I treat GPT 5.5 as a developer model first, and why I couldn’t find a consumer use case that justified its intelligence - The exact prompt pattern I use to unlock a long-running autonomous subagent loop - How I got a near-six-hour autonomous run to one-shot 98% of edge cases in a migration over millions of chat threads and drop my Sentry error rate to the floor - Why I’m now throwing GPT 5.5 at tech debt, flaky tests, and security backlogs first - How I combined a Bluetooth packet sniffer and GPT 5.5 to reverse-engineer a proprietary pixel speaker after Claude Code and GPT 5.4 both gave up - How I use the /personality command inside Codex to swap the default “baked potato” tone for something I actually enjoy working with — In this episode, I cover: (00:00) Introduction to GPT 5.5 testing (00:40) What is GPT 5.5 and how much does it cost? (03:23) Testing GPT 5.5 in ChatGPT: the intelligence overhang problem (07:12) Moving to Codex: where GPT 5.5 really shines (16:01) Hacking a Chinese Bluetooth speaker (21:47) Final thoughts on GPT 5.5’s intelligence and efficiency — Tools referenced: • GPT 5.5 and GPT 5.5 Pro: https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-5-5/ • Codex: https://openai.com/codex/ • ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/ • Claude Code: https://claude.ai/code • Sentry: https://sentry.io/ • Divoom MiniToo: https://divoom.com/products/minitoo — Other references: • OpenAI Codex Security: https://openai.com/index/codex-security-now-in-research-preview/ — Where to find Claire Vo: ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/ Website: https://clairevo.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ X: https://x.com/clairevo — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [redacted email].