OpenAI uses nearly 2,000 AI agents to analyze brain CRISPR data in 32 minutes

OpenAI pointed nearly 2,000 AI agents at a massive mouse brain dataset. They finished their analysis in 32 minutes. Human experts were projected to need anywhere from several months to a year for the same job. The agents also flagged a potential new drug target for neurodegenerative disease. What the agents actually did The project, announced on October 21, 2026, was a collaboration between OpenAI, PerturbAI and Scripps Research. The agents ran on OpenAI’s GPT-Rosalind system. Their target was PerturbAI’s CRISPR atlas. It covers 8 million mouse brain cells and nearly 2,000 genes linked to disease. The agents examined how cells responded to each gene disruption, then cross-referenced those responses against the existing scientific literature. The result is what the team calls a reasoning atlas. It ties gene effects and cellular responses to established research, essentially layering an annotated explanation over raw data. The reasoning atlas has been made publicly available. Many agents beat one The distributed agents cited more than 700 references. The single agent cited 11. In blinded reviews, specialists preferred the multi-agent outputs 75% of the time over the single-agent vers...