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Arena.ai Ranks GPT-5.5 as Top Tier for Search and Coding

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Arena.ai, a community-driven AI model evaluation platform, released the first independent rankings for OpenAI's GPT-5.5 across its specialized leaderboards. The model secured the #2 spot in Search and #3 in Math, while its Code Arena performance jumped 50 points. This update adds to DeepSeek's V4 Pro rankings verified on the platform.
Code Arena Rank
#9 (+50 pts vs GPT-5.4)
Search Arena Rank
#2
Math Rank
#3
Expert Arena Rank
#5
Vision Arena Rank
#5 (#1 for Diagrams)
Document Arena Rank
#6
Reasoning Effort Evaluated
Medium and High
Availability
ChatGPT and Codex API

These results provide objective validation, following a pattern seen in the GPT-5.5 launch, which OpenAI positioned as a new class of intelligence for agentic work. While it currently trails, mirroring Alibaba's Qwen3.6 Plus, the point increase suggests a major shift in how the model handles multi-step goals.

Use these rankings to decide which modality—such as the #1 ranked diagram analysis or #6 ranked document reasoning—best fits your workflow. Current scores reflect "medium" and "high" reasoning effort levels, with an xHigh evaluation pending. GPT-5.5 is available via ChatGPT and the Codex API.

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GPT-5.5 by @OpenAI is now live in the Arena, landing across multiple leaderboards. Here’s how it ranks by modality: - Code Arena (agentic web dev): #9, a strong +50pt jump over GPT-5.4 - Document Arena (analysis & long-content reasoning): #6, on par with Sonnet 4.6 - Text Arena: #7, Math #3, Instruction Following: #8 - Expert Arena: #5 - Search Arena: #2 - Vision Arena: #5 Strong, well-rounded performance, especially in Code (+50 pts vs GPT-5.4). Congrats to @OpenAI on the release. Full category breakdowns by modality in the thread.

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Still wondering? A few quick answers below.

GPT-5.5 holds top-tier positions across several categories, most notably ranking #2 in the Search Arena and #3 in Math. It also reached #5 in the Expert and Vision Arenas. In the Document Arena, which measures analysis and long-content reasoning, the model is currently ranked #6, placing it on par with Anthropic's Claude 4.6 Sonnet.

GPT-5.5 showed a significant performance increase in the Code Arena, specifically for agentic web development tasks. It achieved a 50-point jump over the previous GPT-5.4 version, landing at the #9 spot overall. This improvement highlights the model's enhanced ability to autonomously navigate codebases, write code, and handle multi-step programming goals.

While GPT-5.5 ranks #5 overall in the Vision Arena, it secured the #1 spot specifically for Diagram tasks. This indicates superior performance in understanding and interpreting visual charts or structured diagrams. For other vision-related work, such as homework help, the model currently ranks #7, while the GPT-5.5-High variant is positioned at #14.

The Arena community evaluated GPT-5.5 using two distinct reasoning effort levels: medium, which is the default setting, and high. These levels represent the amount of internal thinking tokens the model uses to process complex logic. A version utilizing xHigh reasoning effort is expected to be added to the leaderboards in a future update.

GPT-5.5 is currently available for use through OpenAI's ChatGPT platform and the Codex API. It is designed as a new class of intelligence for real-world work and powering agents, with capabilities for understanding complex goals, using external tools, and self-correcting its own work to ensure tasks are carried through to completion.

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