A historic stage in the development of generative artificial intelligence is coming to an end. OpenAI has officially announced the closure of the DALL-E tool within the ChatGPT interface. The final deadline for the service is August 30, 2026. The company strongly recommends that users save their generated images by this date, as files may be lost irretrievably after access is disabled.

Transition to New Technologies

Despite the upcoming closure, the DALL-E GPT tool remains fully functional until the very last day. However, this decision is a logical continuation of the company's strategy: back on May 12, 2026, OpenAI removed the DALL-E 2 and DALL-E 3 models from the developer API.

The graphic generation functionality is not disappearing but is being integrated into the updated ChatGPT Images system. The new engine runs on the gpt-image-1 and gpt-image-1-mini models, which provide higher quality results and a deeper understanding of context.

Availability and New Features

A significant change for the community has been the expansion of availability. The ChatGPT Images 2.0 system is now open to all user categories, including those with free accounts. This democratizes access to advanced visualization tools.

For paid subscribers (Plus, Pro, and Business levels), an improved version with logical reasoning capabilities (Images with thinking) is already available. This option will allow the AI to analyze the prompt in detail before generation, increasing the accuracy of the result. In the future, this technology will be rolled out to Enterprise and Edu packages.

What Happens to the Archive and Third-Party Tools

Users may worry about the safety of their work. All previously created images remain accessible on the Images tab in both the web version and the mobile app. However, there is a nuance: files are tied to chat history. If a chat is deleted, the image will disappear from the system. To restore access to old works, it is recommended to use the updated search function within the chat.

It is important to note that third-party user tools (Custom GPTs) using graphic generation will continue to work without changes. The ecosystem remains flexible even amidst restructuring.

Large-Scale Product Reform

The closure of DALL-E is just part of a massive OpenAI product update scheduled for August 2026. During this same period, the company is conducting a "general cleanup" of outdated services:

  • On August 9, the experimental AI browser ChatGPT Atlas will cease operations. Users must also export their personal data from this service in time.
  • On August 26, the outdated o3 model will be removed from ChatGPT. This change affects model selection in the interface for subscribers and marks the end of the 90-day transition period, but does not affect the API.

These steps indicate the company's transition from experimental features to refined, powerful, and integrated solutions.