# Mollick says agentic work began in January 2026 for GPT-4 successors

> Original title: GPT-4 could do 4 minutes of independent work with a 50% chance of success.

- Source: Ethan Mollick
- Published: 2026-11-01T20:16:07.000Z
- Bad Influence: https://badinfluence.news/items/nvj7zankzzey8s98ov1slapb4
- Original: https://x.com/emollick/status/2116987671939875319

## Summary

Ethan Mollick says GPT-4 could complete about 4 minutes of independent work with a 50% success rate, while current models handle multiple weeks of work. He puts January 2026 as the reasonable cutoff for when agentic work started, and says earlier large productivity effects were mostly confined to coding.

## Post

GPT-4 could do 4 minutes of independent work with a 50% chance of success.

Current models can do multiple weeks of work, and January 2026 is a reasonable cut-off for the moment agentic work started.

Large productivity impacts before that would mostly be confined to coding.

## Quoted post @alexolegimas

> Steve was very early on this. But he’s exactly right—chatbot era was never going to be a huge productivity boost. Analyses should put the line at January 2026; agentic AI is where productivity gains are.

https://x.com/alexolegimas/status/2116967827773030602