ChatGPT stops switching to Thinking by itself on Plus and Pro

OpenAI has switched off automatic escalation on its two consumer paid tiers. A fast answer on ChatGPT Plus and Pro no longer becomes a longer, reasoned one when the question gets hard. The capability has not gone anywhere. It now waits to be selected.

The release notes dated Sept. 14 are blunt about what stopped working. "Asking ChatGPT to 'think harder' or 'think deeply' won't automatically switch to a different thinking level," OpenAI writes in its help center. For a lot of people that phrase was the whole technique.

Two controls are gone, one of them invisible

The second change is in the browser. The Higher intelligence setting is no longer available on ChatGPT web for Plus and Pro. ChatGPT Business keeps it under Settings and General. OpenAI names one exception and says the system can still switch on its own for safety reasons.

A Thinking slider replaces it, with five steps from Instant to Medium, High, Extra High and Pro. Plus accounts see three of them. Extra High and the Pro models are reserved for the Pro tier and the business plans, according to OpenAI's own availability table. A Plus user who asks a hard question and changes nothing gets the quick answer. Nothing on screen flags it.

The Pro tiers have ceilings of their own

Paid allowances are tighter than the price suggests. The $200 Pro tier permits 200 GPT-6 Pro messages per week. The $100 tier permits 50 per week, and GPT-5.6 Sol Pro draws from the same pool. ChatGPT then switches to GPT-5.6 Thinking at Medium automatically. We covered the uneven access to the strongest models earlier this month.

Free and Go keep their button

Nothing changes at the free end. The composer still has a Think button, and it uses GPT-5.6 Luna rather than the stronger Sol. The Go tier works the same way. The distinction matters because the two buttons look alike while different models power them.

The models are all still available. You now reach them through the slider. Anyone who does not know about it pays every month for capability they never use.