5 amazing tools built with GPT-5.6 that people are showing off to Sam Altman — from a wardrobe assistant to Pokémon Go for cats | Tech Radar

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5 amazing tools built with GPT-5.6 that people are showing off to Sam Altman — from a wardrobe assistant to Pokémon Go for cats

The Open AI CEO asked to see cool ideas and soon had plenty

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Open AI's debut of the new GPT-5.6 model prompted the usual ritual of benchmark charts and arguments over whether it is really smarter than the last version, but CEO Sam Altman asked for a little more this time. He publicly asked to see what people actually built with it.

i'd love to see interesting things people have built with 5.6 sol.i will send the person who made the coolest thing a special gift from the openai archives. July 12, 2026

i'd love to see interesting things people have built with 5.6 sol.i will send the person who made the coolest thing a special gift from the openai archives. July 12, 2026

That led to a much more interesting showcase. Developers responded with all kinds of ideas, pilot projects, and even complete services. It makes sense, since Open AI claims GPT-5.6 is better at coding and more reliable for long tasks. Seeing them turn into real software says much more than a release blog ever could. Here are five that stood out among the deluge.

A new way to interface with AI pic.twitter.com/7ip 7JPij LOJuly 12, 2026

A new way to interface with AI pic.twitter.com/7ip 7JPij LOJuly 12, 2026

The demo from Kitsune Agent Lab almost makes the chat window feel old-fashioned. The AI agent is given a goal and gets on with the job, moving between different tools, making decisions, and keeping track of what it has already done.

The interesting part is how motivated the AI agent appears to keep going and how good it is at remembering what it's done before. Developers have been asking for something like this for a while. AI is far more useful when it can finish the work instead of simply suggesting how you might do it yourself.

Hi @sama I built a gameboy emulator for NYC that streams real-time city data (subways, weather, ferries, etc) all layered on a 3d map of NYC! All data exists in a spatial intelligence layer that agents can use to experience your fav places in the city! Should I do SF next? pic.twitter.com/uo 0ni BRv R5 July 13, 2026

Hi @sama I built a gameboy emulator for NYC that streams real-time city data (subways, weather, ferries, etc) all layered on a 3d map of NYC! All data exists in a spatial intelligence layer that agents can use to experience your fav places in the city! Should I do SF next? pic.twitter.com/uo 0ni BRv R5 July 13, 2026

One of the most charming projects makes New York City look like it belonged inside an original Game Boy. It comes complete with chunky pixel graphics but runs on a live digital map of New York that pulls in real-time information, including subway trains, weather conditions, and ferry movements. Instead of wandering through a fictional RPG world, you're exploring a tiny, pixelated version of the city.

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A project like this requires far more than generating a few lines of code. It brings together live data feeds, mapping, interface design, and plenty of problem-solving into something that feels polished rather than experimental. It's one reason developers are feeling excited about GPT-5.6

i gave 5.6 sol access to my camera roll and had it extract pictures of every piece of clothing i own from my photosthen, told it to find new outfits for me and render them on me with gpt-image!its kinda cool to see your entire wardrobe in a collection like this https://t.co/pk LTjtn 7x L pic.twitter.com/SV796u Scr BJuly 13, 2026

i gave 5.6 sol access to my camera roll and had it extract pictures of every piece of clothing i own from my photosthen, told it to find new outfits for me and render them on me with gpt-image!its kinda cool to see your entire wardrobe in a collection like this https://t.co/pk LTjtn 7x L pic.twitter.com/SV796u Scr BJuly 13, 2026

This project uses GPT-5.6 to create a polished AI wardrobe assistant that organizes clothing, suggests outfits, and presents everything through an interface that feels more like a premium consumer app than an experimental AI demo.

It's an impressively complete experience. The application gives users a visual, interactive way to browse their clothes and receive recommendations based on what they already own. The demo also highlights GPT-5.6's strength in developers building entire applications instead of isolated features. It brings together interface design, image generation, organization, and intelligent recommendations that would normally require stitching together several complex systems. GPT-5.6 appears to handle much of that heavy lifting.

I made a mobile game https://t.co/J1x Wyut Gk 4 🐱July 13, 2026

I made a mobile game https://t.co/J1x Wyut Gk 4 🐱July 13, 2026

One developer made a whole real-world-based game called Catch Cat. It's like a digital expansion to a scavenger hunt for cats. Point your phone at a real cat, let the app verify the sighting with its camera, and turn that encounter into a collectible digital cat card with its own personality, rarity, and place in your growing album. It is essentially a creature-collecting game in which the creatures are the neighborhood cats you meet.

Players can build collections, explore community sightings, compete with friends, and gradually fill a living scrapbook of feline encounters, all wrapped in a polished interface that would not look out of place on the App Store or Google Play. Building something like Catch Cat means juggling computer vision, mobile development, backend services, and game design.

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Claude Sonnet 5 booked nothing, and still felt like an assistant

Built Atlas Mode for Pearl, an interactive globe that integrates data on the world’s best places + your taste profile to discover and book restaurants, hotels, bars, wineries, and flights. Used 5.6 Sol Ultra + GPT Voice 2.1 pic.twitter.com/b 4 Ll PC7BZRJuly 13, 2026

Built Atlas Mode for Pearl, an interactive globe that integrates data on the world’s best places + your taste profile to discover and book restaurants, hotels, bars, wineries, and flights. Used 5.6 Sol Ultra + GPT Voice 2.1 pic.twitter.com/b 4 Ll PC7BZRJuly 13, 2026

One of the most ambitious projects, Atlas Mode for Pearl, is an interactive globe that turns travel planning into something closer to exploring a living map. Instead of typing destination names into a search box, users can spin the globe, discover places visually, and receive recommendations for restaurants, hotels, and more matched to their personal tastes.

It has an impressive number of moving parts running behind the scenes. The app combines geographic data with an individual taste profile, then layers AI recommendations directly onto an interactive globe. It even has an audio aspect thanks to GPT Voice 2.1. You can talk through vacation ideas instead of endlessly tweaking search filters.

That is a recurring theme among the projects developers rushed to show Sam Altman. The AI is no longer the product itself. Increasingly, it is the engine quietly powering products that people might actually want to use.

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Eric Hal Schwartz is a freelance writer for Tech Radar with more than 15 years of experience covering the intersection of the world and technology. For the last five years, he served as head writer for Voicebot.ai and was on the leading edge of reporting on generative AI and large language models. He's since become an expert on the products of generative AI models, such as Open AI’s Chat GPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini, and every other synthetic media tool. His experience runs the gamut of media, including print, digital, broadcast, and live events. Now, he's continuing to tell the stories people want and need to hear about the rapidly evolving AI space and its impact on their lives. Eric is based in New York City.

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