2026 is the year AI gets practical, says OpenAI
What's the story
OpenAI has revealed its vision for 2026, emphasizing the practical adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in daily life. The company's CFO Sarah Friar shared this vision in a recent blog post, highlighting the importance of making advanced AI technologies more relevant and useful. The focus will be on bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI capabilities and their real-world applications by individuals, businesses, and countries.
AI integration
ChatGPT's unexpected impact and future reliance
Friar noted that the launch of ChatGPT as a research preview was intended to see what would happen if "frontier intelligence" was put directly in people's hands. The response was beyond expectations, with broad adoption and deep usage on an unprecedented scale. This unexpected uptake has changed OpenAI's perspective on its role in the AI landscape, as users increasingly rely on it for tasks like managing budgets, planning trips, or making complex personal decisions.
Future focus
OpenAI's strategy for 2026: Practical adoption
OpenAI's strategy for 2026 is centered around practical adoption. The company sees itself as a research and deployment organization, working to bridge the gap between advancing intelligence and its actual adoption by individuals, businesses, and countries. "The focus is practical adoption," Friar wrote in her blog post. She added that the biggest opportunities lie in health, science, and enterprise sectors where improved intelligence directly translates into better outcomes.
Resource management
OpenAI's plan to expand compute footprint
Friar called compute "the scarcest resource in AI," and revealed OpenAI's plan to expand and diversify its compute footprint throughout 2026. The company intends to manage it as a portfolio rather than a fixed constraint. This flexibility, she argues, is what enables OpenAI to deliver intelligence "at costs measured in cents per million tokens," making AI applicable for everyday workflows instead of just niche, high-end use cases.
AI evolution
OpenAI's next product shift: Agents and workflow automation
The next major product shift for OpenAI will be through agents and workflow automation. The company expects these systems to "run continuously, carry context over time, and take action across tools." For individuals, this could mean an AI that manages projects and coordinates plans. For organizations, it could become an operating layer for knowledge work with deeper, more persistent usage patterns. By year end, OpenAI is also expected to launch its first hardware product.