According to Vercel, the new GPT 5.6 models are now accessible via its gateway. The real story here is the continued platform-ification of model access, where infrastructure providers like Vercel compete to become the default abstraction layer between developers and the underlying AI services. This strategy may lock in users with convenience features like unified billing and routing, but it arguably adds another middleman in a stack already crowded with them.
The key question is whether these platforms can provide enough unique value—beyond just being a pass-through—to justify their existence once model providers mature their own developer tooling.