Inside OpenAI’s big play for science

OpenAI has launched an "OpenAI for Science" team to help scientists accelerate research using its GPT-5 language model, which achieves 92% accuracy on PhD-level science questions compared to GPT-4's 39%. The technology helps researchers find connections between fields, suggest experimental approaches, and locate relevant papers, though it still makes significant errors. Scientists report completing analyses that previously took months, with the tool working best as a collaborative brainstorming partner rather than producing breakthrough discoveries independently.