Sam Altman admits to manual email habits despite AI capabilities

Altman describes his manual email triage as a psychological quirk, noting that scrolling through messages creates a false sense of professional accomplishment. He acknowledges that Codex, OpenAI’s agent designed to navigate computer interfaces and handle routine administrative labor, could easily manage his workflow. Instead, he admits to a cognitive dissonance where he values efficiency in theory but clings to the traditional, manual experience of work in practice.

This tension between human habit and technological potential is not unique to the OpenAI founder. Other executives, such as Klaviyo CEO Andrew Bialecki, have moved toward full automation by using custom scripts to summarize daily communications. Meanwhile, Siemens CEO Roland Busch manages his 200-email daily volume through aggressive brevity and dictation. Altman suggests that current software interfaces remain a barrier, arguing that more seamless integration is necessary before users can fully abandon legacy workflows. As OpenAI navigates its path toward a public offering, these personal habits highlight the broader challenge of shifting ingrained human behavior in an era of rapid AI adoption.