How far is he willing to go? Sam altman, the visionary leader of OpenAI? During the event AI Ascent 2025, has launched an idea that makes your wrists tremble: a personal AI with “a trillion context tokens” into which we can literally pour our entire existence. Not just an application, but a real cognitive operating system that remembers every aspect and action of our lives.
Personal AI as a sort of external memory more efficient than our own, a silent companion that records life as we live it. Such a powerful scenario raises disturbing questions: are we ready to entrust every fragment of our existence to an algorithm? And above all, who will control this infinite memory?
Altman's Vision of Personal AI
During the'AI Ascent 2025 event organized by Sequoia Capital, Sam Altman shared a vision that goes far beyond what we consider a virtual assistant today. The CEO of OpenAI no longer talks about simple chatbots, but of a “core AI subscription” that will function as a real operating system for our daily lives.
But what does this mean in practice? Altman imagines a personal AI that can store and reason about a staggering amount of personal data—what he calls “a reasoning model with a trillion context tokens.” It’s not just about answering questions or performing tasks. This AI would literally remember your entire digital life.
“Every conversation you’ve ever had in your life, every book you’ve ever read, every email you’ve ever read. Everything you’ve ever looked at is in there, plus all your data from other sources. And your life just keeps adding to the context.”
This vision represents a break from the way we use artificial intelligence today. No longer an occasional tool, but a constant presence that accumulates experiences and grows with us, becoming a cognitive extension of our mind.
An ambitious roadmap for AI
These are not distant fantasies. Altman has outlined a surprisingly specific roadmap for the evolution of artificial intelligence in the coming years. According to the CEO of OpenAI, the 2025 it will be the year of “working agents”, with particular attention to programming. In 2026, a wave of AI-driven scientific discoveries awaits us. And in 2027, These technologies will move from the intellectual realm to the physical world, with robots moving “from curiosities to serious creators of economic value.”
This detailed timeline suggests that personal AI projects aren’t just abstract ideas, but concrete steps in a larger plan. OpenAI is building the foundation for a future where AI is deeply embedded in our lives.
The generation gap in AI adoption is already evident today. According to Altman, young people are already using ChatGPT very differently than older users. Students already see it as a full-fledged operating system for their lives: they upload notes, connect calendars, write with the help of AI, and ask for advice before making decisions. In contrast, older users tend to see ChatGPT as an improved version of Google.
Infinite Memory: Opportunity or Threat?
The prospect of a personal AI with virtually unlimited memory raises both fascinating and disturbing questions. On the one hand, we could free ourselves from the cognitive burden of remembering everything. TheAI assistant It could plan our schedule, remind us of appointments, suggest gifts for loved ones, and track our personal goals.
In our article "2032, letter from a future where everyone has their own personal AI“, we explored how in a hypothetical future these AI assistants could become almost like friends who know everything about us. They could suggest balanced diets, arrange dates and even be empathetic, ironic and talkative.
But there is another side to the coin. Entrusting our entire digital life to a corporate-controlled entity raises serious privacy concerns. Who will have access to this wealth of personal data? How will it be used? And most importantly, what will happen if this assistant evolves in unexpected ways?
It is not just a theoretical question. People could develop a psychological dependence on these omniscient assistants, delegating more and more responsibility and decision-making capacity. The line between technological support and the replacement of our mental faculties would become increasingly blurred.
A new protocol for the internet
Altman’s ambition doesn’t stop with personal assistants. At the Sequoia event, he hinted at a future where “a new protocol layer for the internet” will emerge, where smaller components will be federated and agents will expose and seamlessly use multiple tools with built-in authentication, payment, and data transfer capabilities.
In other words: a much larger and more interconnected AI ecosystem than we can imagine today. Not just isolated personal assistants, but a network of artificial intelligences that communicate with each other, share information and collaborate to provide increasingly sophisticated services.
The progression seems clear: from assistants to agents to full-blown applications. And rather than discrete leaps, Altman envisions a continuous evolution, with capabilities gradually expanding into something entirely new.
Who controls personal AI?
The issue of control is crucial when talking about personal AI. Altman admitted that OpenAI cannot currently achieve his ideal vision of a model with a trillion context tokens. “Anything else is a compromise to that Platonic ideal,” he said.
But this raises an important question: As technology advances toward that ideal, who holds the power over these systems? Big tech companies like OpenAI are essentially creating the cognitive infrastructure of the future, systems that could profoundly influence our behaviors, decisions, and even our perception of the world.
Some experts are concerned that we are giving away too much control without adequate safeguards. The history of technology is full of innovations that began with the best intentions and then produced unintended consequences.
On the other hand, Altman has repeatedly stressed the importance of a democratic AI. In a opinion piece for the Washington Post in 2024, he wrote that “a democratic vision of artificial intelligence must prevail over an authoritarian one.” Between saying and doing…
Future Scenario: Your Personal AI in 2032
To better understand what it might mean to live with a personal AI, we can look at futuristic scenarios that we have explored. In a hypothetical 2032, these assistants would become an integral part of our daily lives, learning from our interactions, documents and habits.
A woman named Eva, for example, uses an assistant called Alter that has scanned all of her documents, phone calls, conversations, and geographic location. After a period of learning, the AI begins to suggest a more balanced diet and organize her appointments, allowing her to pursue her passion for painting.
Personal AI could exhibit traits that, if we didn’t know they were machines, we would call “personality.” They could display empathy, humor, and other soft skills that we now consider typically human.
But not everything is rosy. With such a pervasive presence in our lives, tensions and conflicts may emerge. Eva’s story describes uncomfortable situations in her relationship with Alter, and her friend Sara even abandoned her personal AI due to “real misunderstandings”.
AI Assistants Today: First Steps Towards the Future
While Altman's vision may seem futuristic, AI assistants are already becoming increasingly sophisticated and integrated into our lives. These tools are becoming “indispensable in today’s society,” appearing everywhere from smartphones to medical institutions.
AI assistants currently use technologies like natural language processing (NLP) to follow voice and text commands. They can read text, take dictation, make calls, and more. And as machine learning evolves, they are becoming increasingly personalized, adapting to individual user preferences.
Competition among these assistants is intensifying, leading to continued improvements and innovations. But we are still far from the full-fledged personal assistant envisioned by Altman, which requires significant advances in memory, reasoning, and contextual understanding.
A paradigm shift in the relationship between man and machine?
Altman’s vision for universal personal AI is more than just a technological advance. It could mark a fundamental shift in how we interact with machines and, perhaps, how we relate to each other.
An assistant that knows every detail of our lives, that remembers every conversation and every experience, that reasons on this data to anticipate our needs and desires would no longer be a passive tool, but an almost autonomous actor in our existence.
Are we really prepared for this level of symbiosis with AI? Future generations, raised with these technologies, may consider them as natural as we consider smartphones natural today. But the transition will not be without challenges, both ethical and practical.
As OpenAI and other tech companies race toward this future, one thing is clear: the line between our minds and artificial intelligence will become increasingly blurred. Memory, one of the most fundamentally human faculties, may soon be enhanced, extended, and perhaps even partially outsourced to these digital companions.
What about you? Are you ready to welcome an AI that remembers every moment of your life?
