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OpenAI Establishes Five-Level System To Gauge AI Progress
The ChatGPT creator revealed the new classification system to employees during a recent company-wide meeting.
OpenAI has introduced a five-tier framework to monitor its advancement toward developing artificial intelligence that can rival and even surpass human capabilities.
The initiative is the latest in the startup’s efforts to enhance public understanding of AI safety and was shared with staff during a company-wide meeting on Tuesday, July 9. OpenAI intends to present the levels to investors and other stakeholders, which span from conversational AI (Level 1) to AI that can independently operate an entire organization (Level 5).
During the meeting, OpenAI executives informed employees that the company is currently at the first level but is nearing the second level, known as Reasoners. This tier represents AI systems capable of basic problem-solving tasks comparable to a human with a doctorate-level education.
In the same session, OpenAI’s leadership demonstrated a research project featuring the GPT-4 AI model, showcasing new skills indicative of human-like reasoning. For years, the company has been working towards achieving what is often referred to as artificial general intelligence (AGI), which entails creating computers that can outperform humans in most tasks. Such systems do not yet exist, though OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has previously suggested that AGI might be achievable later this decade.
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Determining the criteria for AGI has been a topic of ongoing debate among AI researchers. In a paper published in November 2023, researchers at Google DeepMind proposed a framework of five ascending AI levels, including “expert” and “superhuman”, which resembles the classification system used in the automotive industry for self-driving cars.
According to OpenAI’s proposed levels, the third tier on the road to AGI is called Agents, representing AI systems that can perform tasks autonomously over several days. Level 4 describes AI that can generate new innovations, while the highest level, Organizations, refers to AI capable of managing entire enterprises.
The framework, developed by OpenAI executives and senior leaders, is considered a work in progress. The company plans to collect feedback from employees, investors, and its board, with the possibility of refining the levels over time.
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At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value
Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.
Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.
The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.
Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.
The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.
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Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.
What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.
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