❯ OpenAI’s head of applied research says 80% to 90% of research now targets GPT-7, GPT-8 and later models

Betting on the generation after nextBoris Power, OpenAI’s head of applied research, said at the September 23 Fellows Forum that 80% to 90% of the company’s research is aimed at GPT-7, GPT-8 and beyond because most of the value is there. The Decoder reported the talk on September 27.

Same-generation upgrades are short-term betsHis logic is that real performance leaps come from new base models: train the largest frontier model first, then distill it into smaller, cheaper versions. Updates within a generation, such as GPT-5.1 to 5.2, rely mainly on specialized training data; inside OpenAI they are seen as deliberate short-term bets, even “extremely shortsighted,” though they allow faster iteration and learning.

The bottleneck is knowing what to ask forPower said the core challenge is not that models are too weak but that most ChatGPT users do not know what AI can do. He sketched a progression: GPT-4 needed careful prompting, GPT-5 needed user feedback, and GPT-6 works more like a capable colleague to whom you can simply hand a goal.

Point releases lose priorityThe talk predates the report that GPT-6.1 Astra was scrapped, and the two are not causally linked, but they point the same way: a 6.1 release is exactly the kind of same-generation update Power called a short-term bet. Companies relying on OpenAI models should treat point releases on its roadmap as plans that can change, not firm delivery dates.

▪ SIGNALBig labs are spending their effort on the generation after next, trading the cadence of today’s versions for the next capability step.