If you’re a business leader waiting for the “perfect” AI moment, Sam Altman just gave you a polite nudge — or more accurately, a firm push — to stop waiting and start building.
Speaking at the 2025 Snowflake Summit, the OpenAI CEO had a clear message for the enterprise crowd: the era of hesitation is over. “The models are changing fast… but I think just do it,” he said, addressing a common corporate fear — that if they jump in now, they’ll miss out on something better next quarter. But according to Altman, waiting is no longer the safe move. It’s the risky one.
And he’s got a point. Just a year ago, many execs were still treating AI like a shiny toy — cool, but not ready for the big leagues. Fast forward to today, and that mindset feels prehistoric. AI’s not just ready for work — it’s clocking in, automating customer support, writing code, generating insights, and solving problems that once needed teams of humans and months of effort.
Altman highlighted a key reason companies need to move quickly: speed of learning. The teams experimenting and iterating now are light-years ahead of those still “watching from the sidelines.” His advice? Keep mistakes cheap, learn fast, and scale what works.
He also dropped a reality check: today’s models — like GPT with tools, memory, and retrieval — aren’t just clever chatbots anymore. They’re increasingly reliable systems that pull in fresh web data, remember your context, and can assist with complex, dynamic tasks. The kind that sounds suspiciously close to AGI. But Altman isn’t stuck on labels. “Most people would call what we’ve got now AGI if they saw it five years ago,” he said. The real story? The relentless, exponential progress.
And that progress is already reshaping business: OpenAI’s Codex, for instance, is giving junior dev vibes but with a caffeine IV drip — automating repetitive tasks, freeing up engineers to solve higher-order problems, and pushing productivity into overdrive.
In short: the AI train is not only leaving the station — it’s already a few stops down the line. The question isn’t whether it’s time to get on board. It’s how far behind you want to be.
