Article · Original
OpenAI's median researcher used $601 of coding-agent inference a day at API prices, up from under $1, in January 2026.
Eoch AI's new report.
> OpenAI researchers' coding-agent usage, valued at API list prices, is doubling roughly every month
> By mid-August 2026, the median researcher used $601 a day and about $2M a year, roughly matching or exceeding what employing a researcher costs.
> This pace probably can't last, since one more year would reach about $185M per median researcher, and list-price figures reveal nothing about what OpenAI actually spends.
引用或回复的背景（作者 ID 1529761561170124800，https://x.com/i/status/2107174397698289762）： OpenAI recently published data on its researchers’ coding-agent usage. We took their weekly figures from January to mid-August 2026 and fitted trends to summarize how quickly spending grew.
We found that spending has been doubling about once a month. https://t.co/TpqyvhWqv9