OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is one of the biggest names when we talk about the AI space, but even he still relies on a very old-school way of getting work done. Altman has admitted that he manually goes through his emails even though AI tools could handle much of the work for him.
Speaking on David Senra’s podcast, the OpenAI CEO said he still scrolls through his inbox and decides which emails to open and reply to. He admitted that he knows AI could make this process faster but something about manually doing the task makes him feel productive.
Altman said he should instead be giving more routine computer tasks to Codex, OpenAI’s AI coding and software agent. The system can work on a computer and handle several tasks that would normally require manual effort.
The OpenAI CEO described his email habit as something that does not make much sense from a productivity point of view.
He said that even though he would not normally say he enjoys dealing with emails this way, he appears to have connected these routine tasks with the feeling of getting work done.
Altman is also not the only business leader trying to find a better way to deal with email. Business Insider recently looked at the email habits of 100 CEOs and senior executives.
Many of them said they avoid checking their inbox constantly, set specific times for emails, keep replies short and use automation or delegation to reduce the workload.
For example, Klaviyo CEO Andrew Bialecki has created scripts that send him a summary of important information from the previous day. Siemens CEO Roland Busch, meanwhile, tries to keep his inbox under control despite receiving around 200 emails a day and often keeps his replies very short.
Altman’s comments also show that the transition to AI-powered work will not happen overnight. People are currently using both traditional computer tools and AI systems at the same time.
