OpenAI Sets September 2026 Deadline for Automated AI Research Intern, Full Researcher by March 2028
MIT Technology Review·high signal
OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki revealed the company's new grand challenge: an autonomous AI research intern by September 2026 running on hundreds of thousands of GPUs, escalating to a fully automated multi-agent AI researcher by March 2028. Sam Altman confirmed the timeline on X, calling it the company's North Star that will unify work on reasoning models, agents, and interpretability. The automated researcher will tackle problems too large or complex for humans across math, physics, biology, chemistry, and policy.