- OpenAI is developing a tool that can perform “well-defined research tasks”
- Described as a “research intern” the project met its aim to achieve automation by September 2026, ahead of a fully automated AI researcher operational by March 2028
- The company believes that automated research can “enhance human welfare” and make other contributions
OpenAI has confirmed its project to build a fully automated AI researcher is on schedule, hitting its September 2026 target of developing a “research intern”. Capable of performing research tasks commissioned by a human, the “intern” is the main milestone in the completion of the fully automated system, which OpenAI aims to reveal in March 2028.
The research intern is capable of carrying out tasks that would take several days if completed by a human researcher.
OpenAI has justified the development of the automated AI researcher by citing the reduced cost of AI, and in defending critical infrastructure against capable AI threats. These are observations it may not have published had the Hugging Face incident not occurred.
Automated research?
During an October 2025 livestream, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the development of an automated AI researcher, and its intended milestone and target. “We think it is plausible,” he said, “that by September of next year, we have an intern-level AI research assistant and that by March 2028, we have a legitimate AI researcher.”
Specifically describing the current stage of the project’s development, OpenAI explained its definition of ‘research intern’ as “a system that can carry out well-defined research tasks under human direction, including tasks that would take a skilled researcher a few days.”
The post continues: “AI research is a complex process with many potential bottlenecks […] agentic tools are meaningfully accelerating research progress.”
While this particular intern won’t be able to make coffee or find a box of paperclips, its automated research ability will presumably unlock those tasks for others to complete – such as the human commissioning the research.
Recursive self-improvement
The ChatGPT company clearly expects to hit its March 2028 target for the release of the publicly available automated AI researcher, but it also seems to have learned some important lessons. It argues against the use of recursive self-improvement (RSI) in developing automated research capabilities, noting that achieving that safely is not something that is currently achievable.
OpenAI’s post underlines its continued response to the Hugging Face incident, introducing safety steps at an earlier stage of product development. The update also explains how coding agents are used for development at the company, and confirms recent revisions to monitoring standards.
Noting that “Agent-powered AI research is still new, and we are still learning how to measure it,” OpenAI’s “intern” could herald some some considerable changes to the completion of research, when it the automated AI research tool is finally completed.
