Sam Altman says companies that treat artificial intelligence like a slow-moving IT upgrade risk falling dangerously behind.
In an interview with The Indian Express, the OpenAI chief recalls a recent meeting with a large corporation planning a multi-year AI rollout.
He says such timelines may work for traditional software transitions, but not for rapidly advancing AI systems.
“I was in a meeting yesterday with a big company who was planning to spend 2026 strategizing, 2027 getting the company ready, and 2028 deploying. And that may work for other kinds of technology. Apparently, if you do like a giant ERP (enterprise resource planning) migration, that’s the kind of timeline it takes. Doing that for AI will be a catastrophic mistake. The nimbleness required, the speed, the commitment required are just totally different.”
Looking closer at the pace of AI development, Altman says artificial general intelligence (AGI) may arrive sooner than many assume. He notes that familiarity can dull perception of progress, even as capability compounds.
“I mean, AGI feels pretty close at this point. I think if you had asked most people six years ago, what would you think if we had systems that could do new research on their own? What would you think if we had systems that could make an entire complex computer program on their own, that could do pretty sophisticated knowledge work in all these different fields? You could have one system that could act as an AI doctor, lawyer or computer scientist. We would say, ‘Okay, that sounds pretty general and pretty intelligent.’
We get used to it, whatever we have. But just watching how much the technology we already have is accelerating us internally, I would say it’s pretty close.”
Altman adds that he expects the development curve to steepen further.
“And given what I now expect to be a faster takeoff, I think superintelligence is not that far off.”
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