GPT Image 2 leaked: Three mystery models appear on Chatbot Arena

OpenAI appears to be behind one of the week's most significant leaks. Three unknown image generation models codenamed "maskingtape-alpha," "gaffertape-alpha," and "packingtape-alpha" appeared on Chatbot Arena on April 4–5, 2026, and were quickly removed after users began sharing screenshots of their findings.

Testers who managed to try the models describe dramatic improvements over existing solutions. Text rendering is reportedly near-perfect, world knowledge is noticeably enhanced, and image quality is photorealistic — a class above anything currently available. Some ChatGPT users have also reported that the new engine randomly activates with complex prompts combined with "Format 16:9."

OpenAI has not officially confirmed anything, but the timing is telling. The company shut down its video generation service Sora on March 24 due to high inference costs and stalling growth. Those compute resources are now believed to have been redirected toward a next-generation image model.

Nothing is confirmed, and the three codenames could represent variants of the same model or three separate products. But what the AI community has already tested points unmistakably toward OpenAI preparing to elevate image generation to a new level. An official launch could come at any time.