OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expects the company will achieve an internal system he defines as artificial general intelligence by the end of 2026. Chief Research Officer Mark Chen estimates OpenAI is "80% of the way" there, while co-founder Greg Brockman believes this period will mark AGI's emergence.
The confidence rests on Astra, OpenAI's model family announced last year as an automated research agent. Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki said Astra already meets the company's internal AGI benchmark: given an experimental idea, the model writes code within OpenAI's codebase, executes the experiment and reports results—work equivalent to a human researcher spending a week.
Astra also enables "persistent agents" that function as virtual coworkers, tackling tasks autonomously over sustained periods. Altman said at a customer preview: "I expect this will be the first model where the model actually invents new things in a way that matters." He called this capability "very AGI-like," signaling a shift toward more independent AI function.
The underlying premise is recursive self-improvement, where AI systems contribute to their own enhancement. Industry debate remains sharp over whether language models alone can truly generalize and make novel discoveries—a core AGI requirement. OpenAI defines AGI as "highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work," an economics-driven standard. Other researchers argue AGI requires additional capabilities, such as robust world understanding, suggesting large language models are only one component.
Beyond software, OpenAI is developing hardware. Altman confirmed the company is building a "small handful" of physical devices: one for a table, one for a pocket and one for wear. The first product, a small puck-shaped device expected early next year, will sense surroundings and communicate via voice. Altman also confirmed OpenAI will "definitely" build humanoid robots.
These initiatives demand substantial capital. The company must fund compute infrastructure and research personnel to support its long-term AGI and robotics ambitions.
