OpenAI Gives Free ChatGPT Users Unlimited Text Chats on GPT-5.6 Luna and the Think Button

My take: OpenAI just raised the floor for what anyone can do with ChatGPT for free. As of this week, free plan users have unlimited access to GPT-5.6 Luna as the default model, along with the Think button, which gives the model more time to reason through harder questions before responding. Until now, both were reserved for paid plans.

This matters because ChatGPT's free plan is used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, including employees and freelancers working with limited budgets. What those people can do with the tool today is qualitatively different from what they could a month ago. And that has direct implications for any company or team competing against people who already use AI every day.

The detail worth keeping in mind: limits still apply to file uploads, images, and other features. Unlimited text, yes; multimedia access, not yet.

The question worth asking: if ChatGPT's free plan already includes extended reasoning, which part of the budget your team spends on AI licenses is still justified?