What was said.
Quoted word for word from the source and dated. Where a span such as “three to five years” was given, the years are our arithmetic from the day it was said. Checked Oct 19, 2026.
“We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents “join the workforce” and materially change the output of companies.”
- Who
- Sam AltmanCEO, OpenAI · US
- Said
- Jan 2025
- About
- AI agents in the workforce
- For when
- 2025
- Where it stands
- Date passed
- Kind of source
- company-reported (CEO's own blog)
What has happened since.
Independent measures and reporting only, with their sources. One test never settles a prediction about AGI, and none measures AGI itself.
2025 has passed. In June 2025 Altman wrote, in “The Gentle Singularity”, that “2025 has seen the arrival of agents that can do real cognitive work; writing computer code will never be the same.” That is his own assessment. As a measured check, the Remote Labor Index paper (arXiv, 30 Oct 2025) found “the highest-performing agent achieving an automation rate of 2.5%” on real freelance projects.
Sources: blog.samaltman.com · arxiv.org
Our note: The page shows no explicit date; it says ChatGPT's second birthday was 'a little over a month ago', so early January 2025.
Other predictions.
Watch them explain it.
Talks and interviews with Sam Altman, with our short summary of each.
All videos about AIIntroducing GPT-5
OpenAI's livestream launching GPT-5, in which Sam Altman and members of the team introduce the model and demonstrate it.
Made by the company itselfAI agents · OpenAI · Jan 23, 2025Introduction to Operator & Agents
OpenAI introduces Operator, its first agent product, in a livestream that demonstrates the agent carrying out tasks for users.
Made by the company itselfAI agents · OpenAI · Jul 17, 2025Introduction to ChatGPT agent
OpenAI presents ChatGPT agent, a single agentic model built into ChatGPT, and shows it working in a live demo.
Made by the company itselfWhat the words mean. People define AGI and superintelligence very differently, and the definition decides whether a prediction came true. See how each lab and researcher defines them, or the plain meanings in our glossary.
