OpenAI retires DALL-E image generation from ChatGPT, pushing users to newer models

OpenAI is pulling the plug on DALL-E inside ChatGPT. The company announced on July 31 that the DALL-E GPT interface will be fully retired on August 30, giving users roughly 30 days to save their work and migrate to the replacement feature called ChatGPT Images. What’s actually changing The DALL-E GPT, the dedicated image generation tool accessible within ChatGPT, is being permanently removed. Users who have images saved through that interface need to download them before the August 30 cutoff or risk losing them entirely. The replacement is ChatGPT Images, which runs on OpenAI’s newer gpt-image-1 and gpt-image-1-mini models. These were first introduced back in November 2025, and OpenAI has been gradually steering users toward them since December of that year. The underlying DALL-E-2 and DALL-E-3 model snapshots in the OpenAI API were already scheduled for deprecation by May 12, 2026. So the consumer-facing retirement is the last domino falling in a chain OpenAI set in motion months ago. One important carve-out: user-created GPTs that include image generation capabilities will continue to function. Why this matters beyond pretty pictures OpenAI is consolidating its image generation s...