Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, says the artificial intelligence industry has been too optimistic about timelines for AI adoption, and he counts himself among those who got the predictions wrong. Speaking on the Senra podcast, Altman explained that while the technological pieces for transformative AI products exist, the industry has not yet delivered the kind of breakthrough product experience that would fundamentally change how people work,comparable to how the iPhone revolutionized smartphones.

Why Has AI Adoption Been Slower Than Expected?

Altman pointed to a simple but powerful force: economic inertia. "The economy just has so much inertia. People keep doing the same things they're doing. They keep buying from the same company," he explained. He used Blockbuster as an example, noting that people continued renting DVDs in stores even after Netflix began offering mail delivery, demonstrating how difficult it is to change entrenched behaviors.

Rather than viewing this slowdown as a failure, Altman framed it positively. He said the gradual pace of adoption will make the transition "smoother and slower," which he described as something to be grateful for. However, this reality check has forced a reckoning across the industry. "I think it means we've all been too ambitious on timelines," Altman stated.

What's Missing From Today's AI Products?

Altman drew a direct parallel to the smartphone era before Apple's breakthrough. He owned a Palm Treo around 2003, and most of what the iPhone would later need already existed in some form. "We have all of the technological pieces, but we have not had the iPhone moment of completely changing how someone interfaces with technology," he said. He placed the blame squarely on product design: "I think this is mostly a product failure."

Interestingly, Altman acknowledged his own resistance to using AI-powered tools, despite having access to them. He has used computers the same way for 20 years and still does his own email, even though AI tools like Codex could automate much of that work. "There's something in my mind that is encoded that doing this kind of stuff is what it means to work," he reflected. This personal example underscores the broader challenge: even AI leaders struggle to adopt the very products they're building.

Altman

How OpenAI Is Refocusing Its Strategy

• Killing Good Ideas: Altman acknowledged that the hardest lesson in business is killing good ideas to protect great ones. OpenAI shut down Sora, its video generation tool, because it consumed significant computing resources and mattered less than Codex, the company's AI coding assistant. The company also discontinued Atlas, its browser product, to redirect talent elsewhere.
• Platform Over Product: Altman stated that OpenAI wants to become a platform company rather than a product company, offering a single interface and API instead of competing with its own customers through multiple standalone products.
• Compute and Research Focus: Most of Altman's effort now goes into research and compute infrastructure, which he called "probably the most expensive infrastructure project in history." This shift reflects OpenAI's belief that raw computational power and foundational research matter more than incremental product improvements.

Altman also revealed that OpenAI has slowed development of a model called Astra and is rewriting its safety rules as AI systems approach human-level performance on complex tasks.

The Tension Between Safety and Public Trust

While Altman focused on product and timeline issues, a parallel debate is unfolding in the AI industry about how to communicate AI risks to the public. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has positioned his company as the most safety-focused AI lab, repeatedly emphasizing potential risks. However, this approach may be backfiring.

A recent Gallup survey found that nearly half of adults under 30 now believe AI does more harm than good, up sharply from the previous year, and trust in businesses' use of AI has fallen after two years of gains. Pew's 2026 data is even more sobering: most Americans say AI is advancing too fast, and only a small minority expect its impact over the next two decades to be net positive.

"The airline industry learned long ago to never associate itself with the word 'safety' in marketing material," according to research on how companies communicate risk.

Historical analysis of airline industry marketing practices

The airline industry discovered decades ago that emphasizing safety in advertising actually increases public anxiety rather than reducing it. When Anthropic ran a television ad titled "There's hope in hard questions," it opened with images of a burning house, facial recognition surveillance, homelessness, and cemetery rows. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded by saying he thought the ad was satire. To general audiences, the message that stuck was not "Anthropic is the only company grappling honestly with AI risks," but rather "all AI companies are ushering in a dystopian future."

Sam Altman

What Comes Next for AI Adoption?

Despite the slower-than-expected adoption curve, Altman remains optimistic about AI's long-term impact. He predicted that "we are about to see the greatest boom in people starting smaller businesses that we have ever seen". However, he noted that the field, including OpenAI itself, has not talked enough about this opportunity or built enough products to accelerate it.

Altman also expects some businesses to become harder to compete with precisely because they have nothing to do with AI. People will increasingly want authentic, non-technological experiences and will care more about things like sports teams, he suggested.

OpenAI filed confidentially for an initial public offering in June, and its chief financial officer told staff last week that the company would go public in 2027 or sooner. As the company prepares for this transition, Altman's candid assessment of the industry's overconfidence on timelines suggests OpenAI is recalibrating expectations for investors and the public alike.