OpenAI says Retell uses GPT-6 Astra to power 100M monthly calls

News

OpenAI says Retell uses GPT-6 Astra for voice agents, with Codex helping it reach a $1.6M annual revenue run rate per employee.

OpenAI said Retell is using its models to help power 100 million monthly calls, highlighting how the company is applying GPT-6 Astra and Codex across voice-agent workflows. The post, published October 27, 2026, also said GPT-6 Astra tops Retell’s voice agent benchmark and that Codex helped Retell reach a $1.6 million annual revenue run rate per employee.

Evidence and context

According to OpenAI’s October 27, 2026 post, Retell is using OpenAI models to support a large-scale voice platform handling 100 million calls a month. OpenAI attributed two specific outcomes to its products: GPT-6 Astra leading Retell’s voice agent benchmark, and Codex contributing to a $1.6 million annual revenue run rate per employee. Those figures were stated by OpenAI in the source material and are not independently verified here.

The development adds context to OpenAI’s recent model updates. OpenAI introduced GPT-6 Astra on September 3, 2026, describing it as a model suited to coding, research, computer use and complex multi-step work. OpenAI’s documentation says the model identifier is gpt-6-astra and lists a 1,050,000-token context window, a maximum output of 128,000 tokens, and reasoning-effort settings from low to max. OpenAI also said on September 3, 2026 that Astra was its first model to reach the Critical cybersecurity-capability level under its Preparedness Framework.

OpenAI later introduced GPT-6.1 Terra on October 26, 2026, and also published a GPT-6 and Intelligent UI update on October 7, 2026. The source material does not provide additional operational details about Retell’s customer mix, revenue base, or benchmark methodology, so those elements are not inferred here.