OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says the Company Is Now Focusing on Superintelligence

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman added that the company has a traditional understanding of how to build AGI.

Written by Akash Dutta, Edited by Siddharth Suvarna | Updated: 6 January 2025 12:27 IST

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says the Company Is Now Focusing on Superintelligence

Photo Credit: Reuters

Altman also shared the journey from OpenAI’s inception to the release of the various AI models

Highlights

Altman said that the first AI agents could join the workforce in 2025
He said superintelligent tools could accelerate scientific discovery
OpenAI is rumoured to be working on GPT-5 AI model

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claimed that the company now has a fundamental understanding of how to build artificial general intelligence (AGI) and is shifting its focus towards superintelligence. Altman highlighted that superintelligence could reshape the world and accelerate scientific discovery and innovation to a point beyond human capabilities. While the CEO did not share any roadmaps, he said that the world will see the first glimpse of the technology in the next few years. OpenAI has also not teased any AI models with AGI capabilities so far.

OpenAI CEO Emphasises on Superintelligence

In his personal blog, Altman published a New Year-focused post in which he looked back at the company's journey and shared where it is headed in the near future. The OpenAI CEO also highlighted that the company was incepted nine years ago as a non-profit research lab and did not become relevant in the tech industry until the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022. He also revealed that the AI chatbot was initially named “Chat With GPT-3.5.”

Looking at the future, Altman claimed that the company had gained a traditional and fundamental understanding of building AGI systems and added that the first AI agents might join the workforce in 2025. Notably, it is believed that a multi-step general-purpose AI agent would require some level of AGI to tackle complex, real-world tasks. OpenAI is yet to release its first AI agent.

How Did OpenAI’s o3 Model Reach Human-Level Intelligence on Benchmark?

“We love our current products, but we are here for the glorious future. With superintelligence, we can do anything else. Superintelligent tools could massively accelerate scientific discovery and innovation well beyond what we are capable of doing on our own, and in turn, massively increase abundance and prosperity,” he added.

After making the bold claim, the OpenAI CEO assured that despite it sounding like science fiction, the company is confident that it will reach superintelligence in the next few years. Altman also emphasised the need to “act with great care” with superintelligence while maximising broad benefit and empowerment was important.

Currently, the AI firm is rumoured to be working on GPT-5, which is also said to be codenamed project Orion. Additionally, OpenAI has teased the advanced reasoning-focused o3 series of AI models, which is expected to be released later this year.

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Further reading: OpenAI, Sam Altman, AI, Artificial Intelligence, AGI, Superintelligence

Akash Dutta Email Akash Dutta

Akash Dutta is a Senior Sub Editor at Gadgets 360. He is particularly interested in the social impact of technological developments and loves reading about emerging fields such as AI, metaverse, and fediverse. In his free time, he can be seen supporting his favourite football club - Chelsea, watching movies and anime, and sharing passionate opinions on food. More