OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman demonstrated a new family of artificial intelligence models called Astra to US regulators in Washington this week, showcasing a system that coordinates multiple agents to execute complex, long-running tasks. The Astra model family represents a shift toward agentic AI, allowing several AI entities to collaborate and divide workloads in the background to complete sequences of actions over extended periods.

The private briefings to lawmakers and Cabinet officials took place ahead of an Aug. 1 government deadline for a new framework on reporting major advances in AI capabilities. The system's ability to handle professional work independently could allow users to perform specialized tasks like software engineering or graphic design, increasing the company's compute requirements for the upcoming launch.