OpenAI says coding agents now outpace human labor inside its research org

OpenAI says it has met an internal target of building an automated research intern and that coding agents now supply more labor than humans inside its research organization, even as paying customers still wait for wider GPT-6 Astra access. In a September 6, 2026 snapshot, the company reported that, as of mid-August, the research org used 3.1 agent-workdays of effort for every human workday, reversing a balance that had still favored people before June.