# GPT-6 Astra demonstrates extended reasoning by generating custom running routes

> Here is a small but telling demo. Developer Simon Willison asked ChatGPT running OpenAI's new GPT-6 Astra model to design 5K and 10K running routes starting from his home, and it worked at it for about 27 minutes before returning practical itineraries. Under the hood, the model pulled OpenStreetMap data, reasoned about distances and street layouts, and stitched together loops that actually made sense on the ground. That combination, understanding a real geographic location and then grinding on a multi-step task for nearly half an hour, is the kind of applied, long-horizon work that earlier chatbots could not sustain. None of this is a scientific breakthrough, and that is rather the point. The interesting frontier increasingly is not benchmark scores but whether these systems can quietly handle fiddly, real errands that used to require a person and a map. A running route is trivial, but the underlying capability, patient reasoning over live data toward a concrete goal, is exactly what makes AI agents genuinely useful or genuinely annoying.

_Section: [Daily AI Updates](https://www.wortins.com/daily-ai) · Source: Simon Willison · Published Sunday, September 13, 2026_

## Wortins' read

Here is a small but telling demo. Developer Simon Willison asked ChatGPT running OpenAI's new GPT-6 Astra model to design 5K and 10K running routes starting from his home, and it worked at it for about 27 minutes before returning practical itineraries. Under the hood, the model pulled OpenStreetMap data, reasoned about distances and street layouts, and stitched together loops that actually made sense on the ground. That combination, understanding a real geographic location and then grinding on a multi-step task for nearly half an hour, is the kind of applied, long-horizon work that earlier chatbots could not sustain. None of this is a scientific breakthrough, and that is rather the point. The interesting frontier increasingly is not benchmark scores but whether these systems can quietly handle fiddly, real errands that used to require a person and a map. A running route is trivial, but the underlying capability, patient reasoning over live data toward a concrete goal, is exactly what makes AI agents genuinely useful or genuinely annoying.

## Source

[Read the full story at Simon Willison](https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/12/astra-running-routes/)

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