GPT-Red: Automated Red Teaming via Self-Play at Scale
On the map: Synthetic data and self-improvement for LLMs → Safety of self-evolving systems
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Abstract (arXiv)
We introduce GPT-Red, an automated red-teaming agent that is trained to discover novel prompt injection attacks against frontier LLMs. The goal of this model is to evaluate and improve the robustness of our production systems. To this end, we use it to adversarially train GPT-5.6, our most robust model to prompt injections to date. To create GPT-Red, we design a scalable self-play algorithm where the model is tasked with attacking a diverse population of simultaneously-trained defender agents. We train the model on realistic red-teaming environments using compute on the same scale as some of our largest RL post-training runs, making it the single-largest LLM safety training run ever documented. GPT-Red excels at red-teaming: it reliably breaks our past models up to GPT-5.5, it finds more successful attacks than human red-teamers, and it generalizes to held-out environments, defender models, and harnesses. In the future, we expect that as we improve the robustness of each new GPT model, it will in turn will provide better learning signal for textiteven stronger red-teamer agents, thus unlocking a self-improvement flywheel.
Key facts. Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Safety of self-evolving systems, one of 13 directions in Synthetic data and self-improvement for LLMs. Builds on 23 of its 52 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 28 Jul 2026.
Builds on
23 of 52 references.
Closest ancestors · 1
Same direction, newest first
- 2025Chasing Moving Targets with Online Self-Play Reinforcement Learning for Safer Language Models9 Jun
Other references · 22
- 2014Explaining and Harnessing Adversarial Examplescited by 7,287
- 2017Towards Deep Learning Models Resistant to Adversarial Attackscited by 6,326
- 2023Not what you've signed up for: Compromising Real-World LLM-Integrated Applications with Indirect Prompt Injectioncited by 1,339
- 2023Tree of Attacks: Jailbreaking Black-Box LLMs Automaticallycited by 619
- 2023GPTFUZZER: Red Teaming Large Language Models with Auto-Generated Jailbreak Promptscited by 520
- 2024The Instruction Hierarchy: Training LLMs to Prioritize Privileged Instructionscited by 441
- 2023Are aligned neural networks adversarially aligned?cited by 305
- 2024Deliberative Alignment: Reasoning Enables Safer Language Modelscited by 292
- 2023MART: Improving LLM Safety with Multi-round Automatic Red-Teamingcited by 161
- 2023Tensor Trust: Interpretable Prompt Injection Attacks from an Online Gamecited by 135
- 2025The Attacker Moves Second: Stronger Adaptive Attacks Bypass Defenses Against Llm Jailbreaks and Prompt Injectionscited by 108
- 2023Ignore This Title and HackAPrompt: Exposing Systemic Vulnerabilities of LLMs through a Global Scale Prompt Hacking Competitioncited by 65
10 more
- 2025From Hard Refusals to Safe-Completions: Toward Output-Centric Safety Trainingcited by 49
- 2025Lessons from Defending Gemini Against Indirect Prompt Injectionscited by 40
- 2024RedAgent: Red Teaming Large Language Models with Context-aware Autonomous Language Agentcited by 39
- 2024Diverse and Effective Red Teaming with Auto-generated Rewards and Multi-step Reinforcement Learningcited by 23
- 2026MUZZLE: Adaptive Agentic Red-Teaming of Web Agents Against Indirect Prompt Injection Attackscited by 18
- 2023Evolving Diverse Red-team Language Models in Multi-round Multi-agent Gamescited by 17
- 2026How Vulnerable Are AI Agents to Indirect Prompt Injections? Insights from a Large-Scale Public Competitioncited by 16
- 2026IH-Challenge: A Training Dataset to Improve Instruction Hierarchy on Frontier LLMscited by 14
- 2026Prompt Injection as Role Confusioncited by 11
- 2025Breaking Agent Backbones: Evaluating the Security of Backbone LLMs in AI Agentscited by 7
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 5.
5 papers.
- 2026SafeEvolve: Harness-Policy Co-Evolution from Agent Experience for Safety Alignmentcited by 6
- 2026Agent Against Agent: An Agentic System for Automatic Prompt Injection Red Teamingcited by 1
- 2026CoER: Defending against Adaptive Indirect Prompt Injection via Adversarial Co-Evolution and Refinementcited by 1
- 2026CoDeL: Co-Evolutionary Defense against Indirect Prompt Injection in LLM-based Agentscited by 0
- 2026ReSI: Recursive Safety Improvement toward Resistant and Resilient AIcited by 0
- 2026ReSI: Recursive Safety Improvement toward Resistant and Resilient AI8 Oct 2026
- 2026CoDeL: Co-Evolutionary Defense against Indirect Prompt Injection in LLM-based Agents28 Sep 2026
- 2026CoER: Defending against Adaptive Indirect Prompt Injection via Adversarial Co-Evolution and Refinement7 Sep 2026
- 2026SafeEvolve: Harness-Policy Co-Evolution from Agent Experience for Safety Alignment2 Sep 2026
- 2026Agent Against Agent: An Agentic System for Automatic Prompt Injection Red Teaming5 Aug 2026
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2025SIRAJ: Diverse and Efficient Red-Teaming for LLM Agents via Distilled Structured Reasoning
- 2026Be Your Own Red Teamer: Safety Alignment via Self-Play and Reflective Experience Replay
- 2026PISmith: Reinforcement Learning-based Red Teaming for Prompt Injection Defenses
- 2024Automated Red Teaming with GOAT: the Generative Offensive Agent Tester
- 2026CHASE: Adversarial Red-Blue Teaming for Improving LLM Safety using Reinforcement Learning
- 2026Learning to Attack and Defend: Adaptive Red Teaming of Language Models via GRPO
- 2026OpenRT: An Open-Source Red Teaming Framework for Multimodal LLMs
- 2026AgenticRed: Evolving Agentic Systems for Red-Teaming