Scaling social science research
OpenAI Blog
February 13, 2026
AI-Generated Deep Dive Summary
OpenAI has introduced GABRIEL, an innovative open-source toolkit designed to transform qualitative data into quantitative measurements using AI. This tool is particularly valuable for social scientists, economists, and researchers who work with vast amounts of unstructured text and images, such as interviews, social media posts, or photographs. By enabling researchers to pose questions in plain language—like "how family-friendly is this job listing?"—GABRIEL consistently applies these queries across thousands or even millions of documents, generating scores for each one. This allows researchers to focus on analysis rather than repetitive data labeling.
The tool’s applications are diverse and impactful. For instance, GABRIEL can analyze large datasets of scientific papers to track methodological trends over time or evaluate course curricula to assess subject coverage. It can also extract historical details from small towns across Europe or identify patterns in customer reviews. OpenAI benchmarked GPT’s accuracy in labeling qualitative data across various use cases and found it to be highly reliable, making it a trustworthy tool for researchers.
Beyond its core measurement capabilities, GABRIEL includes practical features such as dataset merging, smart deduplication, and deidentification of personal information to protect privacy. These tools address common challenges faced by researchers, streamlining their workflow and enhancing efficiency. The toolkit is available as an open-source Python library with minimal technical requirements, ensuring accessibility for a broad range of users.
For AI enthusiasts, GABRIEL represents a significant advancement in applying generative models like GPT to solve real-world problems. By automating time-consuming tasks and enabling large-scale analysis, it democratizes access to qualitative data, unlocking new research possibilities. OpenAI’s commitment to open-source development underscores its mission to collaborate with the academic community and improve the tool based on feedback. With GABRIEL, researchers can now harness the power of AI to turn rich human stories into actionable insights, advancing social science in ways that were previously unattainable.
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Originally published on OpenAI Blog on 2/13/2026