Wendi Whitmore Chief Security Intelligence Officer Palo Alto Networks
DID OPENAI LOSE OUT IN THE CYBER RACE?
Shortly after the Mythos stir up, OpenAI released its cyber models GPT-5.4-Cyber and then GPT-5.5-Cyber – very capable models in their own standing
Offering US $ 10m commitment through its Cybersecurity Grant Program and expanding its Trusted Access for Cyber( TAC) programme – which provides vetted security professionals with controlled access to advanced AI capabilities designed exclusively for defensive use – OpenAI moved to solidify its position among the leaders in AI cyber defence. The company also released Daybreak, a platform designed to embed AI models into software development and security workflows, thereby helping defenders see risk earlier and act sooner.
The AI Security Institute, which has evaluated both Anthropic’ s Mythos system and OpenAI’ s GPT-5.5 Cyber, reports broadly comparable capability levels across key cyber tasks including exploit reasoning, defensive response and scenario planning. All of this is to say that the AI giant seems to have a positioning problem and not a capability one. All because Anthropic beat OpenAI to the market with Mythos.
128 July 2026