Research acceleration: The view inside OpenAI

OpenAI revealed that its research team's use of coding agents drove a significant acceleration in AI spend per researcher starting in late July, coinciding with internal access to the model later released as GPT-6 Astra. The chart in the post illustrates the sharp uptick in agentic engineering adoption within OpenAI during 2026.

Research acceleration: The view inside OpenAI https://openai.com/index/research-acceleration-view-inside-openai/ Included are details on how OpenAI's own research team are using coding agents. Like pretty much everyone else 2026 has been the year that agentic engineering really took off at OpenAI, best illustrated by this chart: I'm intrigued at what caused that significant acceleration in AI spend per researcher in late July - my best guess is that's when internal employees gained access to the model later released as GPT-6 Astra. Tags: ai https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai , openai https://simonwillison.net/tags/openai , generative-ai https://simonwillison.net/tags/generative-ai , chatgpt https://simonwillison.net/tags/chatgpt , llms https://simonwillison.net/tags/llms , coding-agents https://simonwillison.net/tags/coding-agents , november-2025-inflection https://simonwillison.net/tags/november-2025-inflection , recursive-self-improvement https://simonwillison.net/tags/recursive-self-improvement