OpenAI released a report on September 6, 2026, regarding the expanding use of AI agents within its research division. According to the report, AI usage by researchers is increasing rapidly, with the median number of output tokens growing 124-fold between November 2025 and August 2026.

As of August 2026, the median daily token expenditure, converted to API pricing, is over $600 (approximately ¥94,000). The report also indicated that for the top 10% of high-usage researchers, daily costs exceed $7,000 (approximately ¥1 million).

Changes were also observed in the nature of researchers' work; in June 2026, the labor hours of AI agents surpassed those of humans. As of August 2026, AI agents are calculated to be working 3.1 times more than humans. Additionally, it was reported that as of August 2026, approximately 70% of researchers are operating four or more AI agents simultaneously.

Source: