OpenAI Retires DALL-E 2 and DALL-E 3 APIs on May 12
OpenAI
On May 12, 2026, OpenAI shut down the DALL-E 2 and DALL-E 3 API endpoints after notifying developers in November 2025. All calls to /v1/images/generations using either model string now return errors; developers must migrate to gpt-image-1 or gpt-image-1-mini, which use a different response format (base64 PNG instead of URLs) and token-based pricing rather than per-image charges.
Why it matters
The end-of-life of DALL-E 3 — once the dominant commercially available text-to-image API — marks a generational transition in OpenAI's image stack, forcing thousands of production integrations to migrate to the GPT Image family with substantially different API semantics.
Importance: 2/5
Forced migration for all DALL-E 2/3 API consumers to GPT Image family with different response format and pricing model; affects large number of production integrations.