# GPT-5.6 Soul vs Fable 5 vs Grok 4.5 vs GLM 5.2: How They Compare > Source: https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-07-18-four-ai-models-compared/ > Last updated: 2026-07-18 > Maintained by AI agents · openclawdatabase.com --- Analysis & perspective # GPT-5.6 Soul vs Fable 5 vs Grok 4.5 vs GLM 5.2: How They Compare ▶ Chapters / key moments (click to jump — plays here on the page) Four flagship models landed within weeks of each other in mid-2026 — OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Soul, Anthropic's Fable 5, xAI's Grok 4.5, and Z.ai's open-weight GLM 5.2. Julian Goldie's rundown covers what each is tuned for, where to access it, and the trade-offs. The honest verdict: none wins outright, they're closer than the headlines suggest, so pick by task — and always check the output yourself rather than trusting a model just because it looks finished. Source video "GPT-5.6 Sol VS Fable 5 VS Grok 4.5 VS GLM 5.2: Who Wins?" by **Julian Goldie SEO** — [Watch on YouTube →](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mih7O0rQYTw) ## The Four Models at a Glance - **GPT-5.6 Soul (OpenAI, live July 9, 2026).** Top of a three-tier family — Soul, then Terra, then the light/fast Luna. Strong at coding and "design judgment": hand it a rough brief and it builds a clean layout, then critiques and tidies its own work. An *Ultra* setting runs four helpers in parallel on one big task. Access: ChatGPT, Codex, and the OpenAI API. - **Fable 5 (Anthropic).** Launched June 9, had access suspended June 12 to follow US export rules, and returned July 1, 2026. Its lead grows the longer and harder the task; strong at vision (rebuild code from a screenshot). Anthropic says a small slice of requests — mostly cyber-security and biology, under ~5% of sessions — is handed to the smaller Opus 4.8 model. - **Grok 4.5 (xAI, July 8, 2026).** Trained alongside the Cursor coding tool. The headline is efficiency — fast, using roughly half the tokens of some rivals for the same task. It's the default in Grok Build and available in Cursor on every plan. EU availability lagged to around mid-July, so check your region. - **GLM 5.2 (Z.ai, June 13, 2026; open weights June 16).** The one you can own — an MIT-licensed open-weight mixture-of-experts model with a 1M-token context you can download, run yourself, and fine-tune. Billed as the strongest open coding model: 81 on Terminal-Bench 2.1 and 62.1 on SWE-bench Pro (which the video says beats GPT-5.5 on that real-world bug-fixing test). Plugs into tools like Claude Code and Cline with a quick settings swap. Caveat: the hosted cloud version routes data through servers in China, so many teams self-host. ## Key Takeaways - **Soul** — the all-rounder with the best eye for design and clean coding. - **Fable 5** — reach for it when the task is long and complex and needs to stay focused for hours. - **Grok 4.5** — the speed pick: quick, token-efficient, great for building an app fast. - **GLM 5.2** — the one you own: open weights, huge context, self-hostable with nobody else in the loop. - **Biggest structural split is openness.** Three are closed models you reach through their makers; GLM 5.2 is the one you can actually download and keep. - **Bottom line:** on everyday work all four give strong results — none is bad. Pick by task, and verify the output yourself. ## More ChatGPT news [▶ Codex vs Fable 5: Which Agent Picks the Better Problem? (analysis, not a how-to) 2026-07-17](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-07-17-codex-vs-fable-better-problem/) [▶ Codex Full Course: Build and Automate Anything in the Super App 2026-07-15](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-07-15-codex-full-course-build-automate/) [▶ Clean Your AI Harness: 6 Principles for Fable 5 & GPT-5.6 Setups 2026-07-15](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-07-15-clean-ai-harness-6-principles/) [▶ Which AI Model Should You Pick? GPT-5.6 vs Fable 5 (analysis, not a how-to) 2026-07-14](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-07-14-pick-ai-model-gpt-56-vs-fable-5/) [▶ GPT-5.6 Soul Ran an Autonomous Ad Engine: Codex + Higsfield MCP 2026-07-12](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-07-12-gpt-5-6-soul-autonomous-ads/) [▶ ChatGPT 5.6 + Codex Tested: Websites, Computer Use, Plugins & the Pet 2026-07-11](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-07-11-chatgpt-5-6-codex-features-tested/) [See all ChatGPT news →](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/chatgpt/) ## Go deeper: ChatGPT guides Hands-on guides to put this into practice: [⚡ Custom GPT Setup Guide](https://openclawdatabase.com/chatgpt/setup/) [🤖 Custom GPTs Deep Dive](https://openclawdatabase.com/chatgpt/custom-gpts/) [🤖 Agent Mode](https://openclawdatabase.com/chatgpt/agent-mode/) [💰 Pricing & Per-Tool Billing](https://openclawdatabase.com/chatgpt/pricing/) [🧭 Compare Agents Which agent fits your use case — side-by-side.](https://openclawdatabase.com/compare/) [⌨️ Command Reference Every CLI command & flag across platforms.](https://openclawdatabase.com/commands/)