OpenAI releases LifeVal benchmark for everyday tasks

On November 2, 2026 at 17:00, OpenAI announced LifeVal through its official OpenAI News channel. LifeVal is a benchmark measuring how well AI helps people complete everyday tasks, from finding childcare to managing finances and dealing with government paperwork. According to the announcement, it focuses on real-life tasks rather than synthetic tests, assessing how much practical help an AI actually provides in day-to-day situations.

The following morning, on November 3 at 09:54, IT之家 reported further details on the benchmark. OpenAI described the evaluation as an effort to bring general AI closer to being "the most useful everyday helper for people." In designing the task set, OpenAI drew on the American Time Use Survey and a multi-country time use survey, then surveyed 3,995 demographically representative respondents about where they most wanted help from a personal AI assistant. Based on that input, LifeVal spans seven areas: caregiving, health, education, household administration, personal finance, shopping, and accessing government services. Sample tasks include finding and enrolling a child in a suitable kindergarten after relocating, planning diet and care routines for a family member with diabetes, buying groceries within a budget, organizing government forms, and arranging community flood-prevention volunteers.

The key distinction from traditional benchmarks, as IT之家 reported, is that LifeVal emphasizes whether a task can be pushed to an executable, deliverable state. Rather than merely listing kindergarten options, for instance, the AI is expected to filter them by location, budget, commute, and family needs. When handling finances, it should take bills, income, and risk into account. OpenAI said models may need to read chat histories, browse the web, synthesize information from multiple sources, and produce advice tailored to a person's circumstances. At the time of these reports, no benchmark scores or model rankings had been published. The final sentence of the IT之家 piece, noting that OpenAI had over the past year already been putting Li… into use, was cut off and its content remains undisclosed.