ChatGPT app adds long-press gesture to switch intelligence levels mid-conversation

ChatGPT Mobile App Gets Intelligence Level Shortcut

OpenAI added a long-press gesture to the ChatGPT mobile app that allows users to select intelligence levels before sending messages. Pressing and holding the send arrow icon now invokes a picker with options including Instant, Thinking, and Extended modes.

The feature provides an alternative to navigating through menus to switch intelligence levels, which determine how much computational effort ChatGPT applies to a prompt. Available intelligence level options depend on the user's OpenAI subscription tier.

According to OpenAI product manager Naman Kedia, the gesture allows users to "pick a different model for just that message without switching your default."

Table of Contents for Long Conversations

OpenAI also added a table of contents feature to the ChatGPT web app for conversations with five or more responses. The feature displays a set of lines on the middle right section of the conversation window. Hovering over these lines reveals an expanded table of contents that allows users to jump to specific sections of the chat.

The table of contents feature is currently limited to the web app and has not been deployed to mobile or desktop applications.

GPT-5.5 Instant Model Update

On May 31, OpenAI updated the GPT-5.5 Instant model, which serves as the default for most ChatGPT prompts. The company stated the update improves "response style and quality" to make outputs "easier to read, more natural in everyday conversations, and better paced in practical help tasks, with fewer overly long or bullet-heavy responses."

GPT-5.5 Instant was initially released on May 5, 2026, offering what OpenAI described as smarter responses with fewer emoji characters.

What This Means

The long-press gesture addresses a usability friction point as OpenAI pushes its automatic model picker feature. Users can now quickly override the default intelligence level for specific queries without permanently changing their settings. The table of contents feature suggests OpenAI recognizes that ChatGPT conversations are growing longer and more complex, requiring better navigation tools. The rapid iteration on GPT-5.5 Instant—updating the model just weeks after its initial release—indicates OpenAI is responding to user feedback about response formatting.