OpenAI says its 'automated research intern' goal is met, targets fully automated researcher by March 2028
OpenAI
In a Sep 6, 2026 blog post ('Research acceleration: The view inside OpenAI') OpenAI says it reached the goal set in fall 2025 of an 'automated research intern' — a system handling well-defined tasks that would take a skilled researcher days — and is on track for an automated AI researcher by March 2028. Internal figures: 3.1 agent-workdays per human workday as of mid-August 2026, median researcher spending over $600/day on inference and the 90th percentile over $7,000/day.
Why it matters
First quantified inside look at how much frontier-lab research work agents already do, with a dated milestone toward automated AI research.
Importance: 3/5
Frontier-lab milestone statement with quantified internal agent-usage figures