Altman says AI shifts from queries to always-on agents, backing $45B bet

OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said artificial intelligence is shifting from a passive query tool to an always-on background agent, a transformation he argues justifies the more than $45 billion being poured into the Stargate data center in Michigan.

"Very soon, an A.I. will just be running for you in the background all the time, helping you with your job, looking at all your information, aware of all your context," Altman said in an interview with CNBC's David Faber at the Stargate site in Saline, Michigan.

The 1-gigawatt campus, a joint venture with Oracle and SoftBank, carries a development cost of $16 billion for the site and buildings, with Oracle Chief Executive Clay Magouyrk estimating an additional $30 billion to $40 billion for internal components. OpenAI has told investors it targets roughly $600 billion in total compute spend by 2030, according to a February presentation.

The bet reflects a conviction that demand for AI compute will far outstrip current supply as the technology moves beyond discrete tasks into continuous, context-aware operation. Altman said coding models have been the single biggest driver of demand, with companies that adopted AI most aggressively also hiring the most.

Coding Models Fuel the Demand Surge

Altman pointed to a sharp improvement in coding models late last year and early this year as the inflection point that convinced businesses to commit to AI infrastructure at scale. "The coding models got really good late last year, early this year, and then another step forward in recent months," he said. "I think it's fair to say that coding is the magic right now."

The shift has transformed how companies build products and allocate engineering resources, Altman said, driving revenue growth across the industry. He expressed confidence that the Stargate investment would generate adequate returns, citing the pace at which organizations are now treating AI compute as a strategic necessity rather than an experimental tool.

"People are really saying, the future of my company, the future of my scientific research program, it is going to depend on this," Altman said. "Can you promise me compute long into the future?"

Industry Faces a Narrative Challenge on Jobs

Altman acknowledged that the AI industry has failed to adequately address public anxiety about job displacement, calling the communication gap a "huge challenge." He said people are right to be anxious about a technological shift that he described as potentially the biggest in a generation.

"What I wish we had said then is that it outperforms professionals at small tasks in 44 occupations, which is I think a more accurate thing," Altman said, referring to the launch of a model that outperformed professionals across multiple fields. He argued that companies adopting AI most aggressively are also hiring the most, while those citing AI as a reason for layoffs tend to be the least AI-enabled.

Altman also pushed back against what he called a "terrible message" from some in the industry who predict widespread job elimination and universal basic income as the end state. "I think our industry underestimated how much we're going to be able to keep people at the center of everything," he said.

On the question of an initial public offering, Altman said OpenAI is not racing rival Anthropic, which recently filed confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission. "Going public is a financing event, and I don't think that's one that we're focused on the timing of," he said. Space-based data centers, he added, are not a near-term priority.

The Investment Case for Always-On AI

For investors, Altman's vision implies a step-change in compute demand that extends well beyond the current Stargate buildout. If AI shifts from task-based queries to persistent background agents, the infrastructure required to support that model — data centers, networking gear, energy — could grow faster than current market expectations. Altman said he still does not think "the world has appreciated how much A.I., every person and every business is going to want."

The Stargate project alone represents a roughly $500 billion commitment over four years announced in January 2025, with OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle as the lead partners. Altman's confidence in the return on that investment rests on the assumption that token prices will keep falling while usage accelerates — a dynamic he described as the core of OpenAI's strategy.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.