Исследование OpenAI: как ChatGPT расширяет задачи и размывает границы профессий

In July 2026, OpenAI published a study on how artificial intelligence is changing the content of work: according to the company's data, ChatGPT users are increasingly taking on tasks from adjacent professions, thereby blurring the usual boundaries between job roles.

What OpenAI's Study Found

OpenAI's study captures one key shift: AI is not so much replacing workers as expanding the set of tasks a single person is capable of performing. According to the company's observations, employees with access to ChatGPT are stepping outside their formal role — a marketer takes on draft code, a developer writes texts themselves, an analyst prepares design mockups. The boundary between "my job" and "someone else's job" is becoming fluid.

OpenAI describes this specifically as expanding, not automation: the assistant lowers the barrier to entry for an adjacent skill, so a person takes on what they used to delegate to a colleague or contractor. This continues OpenAI's line of research into how its models are actually used in work scenarios.

Why Professional Boundaries Are Blurring

Professional boundaries are blurring because ChatGPT reduces the cost of learning a new skill to almost zero. When writing an SQL query, compiling a spreadsheet, or drafting a legal clause can be done in minutes with an assistant's help, the need to hand the task off to a narrow specialist disappears. OpenAI notes that this is precisely why a single employee closes out more and more types of tasks within their own role.

For companies, this changes the logic of hiring and team organization. Whereas a position used to be described by a narrow set of duties, now, following the logic of OpenAI's study, the role becomes broader, and the job becomes a combination of tasks that the person and the AI perform together.

Who This Affects

The shift affects primarily office and knowledge professions, where a task can be handed off to a text-based assistant: marketing, development, analytics, support, management. It is precisely in these roles that ChatGPT lets one person close out tasks that used to require a separate specialist — which is why the boundary between professions is most fluid there. OpenAI treats this effect as cross-cutting across different functions rather than tied to a single industry.

What This Looks Like in Practice

The expansion of tasks is visible at the level of everyday operations: a person working with an assistant combines functions that used to be split among several specialists. A marketer edits simple code without waiting for a developer; an engineer finishes their own texts and documentation; a manager compiles analytics without a dedicated analyst. The mechanism is the same in each case — ChatGPT lowers the barrier to entry for an adjacent skill, and the task doesn't leave the team.

At the same time, OpenAI describes expansion, not full interchangeability: the assistant helps a person take on an adjacent task, but it does not eliminate the need for expertise where depth is required. The study captures a shift in the breadth of tasks handled by a single worker, not the disappearance of specializations.

AI expands what people do at work:

ChatGPT users take on tasks from different roles and redefine the boundaries of professions.

— from

OpenAI's study "How AI is expanding what people do at work"

What This Means

The conclusion of OpenAI's study is simple: AI is redefining not jobs themselves, but the very content of work. The winners are not those AI will replace, but those who, with its help, take on a broader range of tasks — from code to texts to analytics — within a single role. For an employee, this means betting on breadth and the ability to manage an assistant, not just on narrow specialization; for companies, it means rebuilding job descriptions around work that people and AI do together.