OpenAI reveals how much its researchers are spending on AI coding

OpenAI has disclosed that its researchers are spending an average of over $600 per day on AI coding agents, with some of the most prolific users spending up to $7,000 daily. According to the company's latest blog post, the usage of these agents among researchers has surged in the past three months, outpacing growth in other teams.

The median researcher at OpenAI's research organization now spends more than $600 in tokens per day, up from $162 in July. These figures are based on API inference costs, rather than the actual amount OpenAI pays. The increased use of coding agents has allowed researchers to work faster, conduct more experiments, and delegate higher-level tasks.

Additionally, these agents are being utilized more frequently to resolve technical issues, leading to a significant decrease in daily posts to a technical support channel. OpenAI aims to create an automated research intern capable of following human direction, and is on track to achieve this by March 2028. The growing popularity and effectiveness of coding agents have revolutionized software engineering, enabling developers to delegate tasks and review outputs.

However, this trend has also raised concerns about the high costs associated with top AI models, prompting some companies to suspend internal token leaderboards.