OpenAI

OpenAI

Company type	Private
Industry	Artificial intelligence
Founded	December 8, 2015 (10 years ago) (2015-12-08)[1]
Founders	Sam Altman Elon Musk Ilya Sutskever Greg Brockman Trevor Blackwell Vicki Cheung Andrej Karpathy Durk Kingma John Schulman Pamela Vagata Wojciech Zaremba
Headquarters	1455 3rd Street, San Francisco, California, U.S.[2]
Key people	Bret Taylor (chairman) Sam Altman (CEO) Greg Brockman (president) Sarah Friar (CFO)[3] Fidji Simo (CEO of Applications)
Products	ChatGPT GPT-5.4 OpenAI Codex GPT Image Deep Research ChatGPT agent ChatGPT Atlas ChatGPT Health
Revenue	US$13.1 billion[4] (2025)
Net income	US$−9 billion[5] (2025 est.)
Owners	Ownership of OpenAI Global, LLC: Employees and investors (47%) Microsoft (27%) OpenAI Foundation (26%)[6]
Number of employees	4,500 (2026)[7]
Subsidiaries	OpenAI Global, LLC (PBC) OpenAI Foundation (501(c)(3))[8]: 1050
Website	openai.com

OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence (AI) research organization consisting of a for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC) and a nonprofit foundation, headquartered in San Francisco. OpenAI developed the GPT family of large language models, the DALL-E series of text-to-image models, and the Sora series of text-to-video models, which have influenced industry research and commercial applications.^[9][10][11] Its release of ChatGPT in November 2022 has been credited with catalyzing widespread interest in generative AI.

OpenAI was founded in 2015 in Delaware as a nonprofit. A for-profit subsidiary of the nonprofit was created in 2019, and a 2025 restructuring converted the subsidiary into a PBC that is 26% owned by the nonprofit. Microsoft previously invested over $13 billion into OpenAI,^[12] and provides Azure cloud computing resources.^[13] In October 2025, OpenAI conducted a $6.6 billion share sale that valued the company at $500 billion.^[14]

In 2023 and 2024, OpenAI faced multiple lawsuits for alleged copyright infringement against authors and media companies whose work was used to train some of OpenAI's products. In November 2023, OpenAI's board removed Sam Altman as CEO, citing a lack of confidence in him, but reinstated him five days later following a reconstruction of the board. Throughout 2024, roughly half of then-employed AI safety researchers left OpenAI, citing the company's deprioritization of safety goals.^[15][16]

In December 2015, OpenAI was founded as the nonprofit organization OpenAI, Inc.,^[17] by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Trevor Blackwell, Vicki Cheung, Andrej Karpathy, Durk Kingma, John Schulman, Pamela Vagata, and Wojciech Zaremba, with Sam Altman and Elon Musk as the co-chairs.^[18][19] A total of $1 billion in capital was pledged by Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Infosys.^[20][21] However, the actual capital collected significantly lagged pledges. According to company disclosures, only $130 million had been received by 2019.^[22]

In its founding charter, OpenAI defined its mission as ensuring that artificial general intelligence (AGI) "benefits all of humanity",^[23] and stated an intention to collaborate openly with other institutions by making certain patents and research publicly available, but later restricted access to its most capable models, citing competitive and safety concerns.^[24][25][18] OpenAI was initially run from Brockman's living room.^[26] It was later headquartered at the Pioneer Building in the Mission District, San Francisco.^[27][28]

Musk and Altman stated in 2015 that they were partly motivated by concerns about AI safety and existential risk from artificial general intelligence.^[29][18] OpenAI stated that "it's hard to fathom how much human-level AI could benefit society", and that it is equally difficult to comprehend "how much it could damage society if built or used incorrectly".^[25] The startup also wrote that AI "should be an extension of individual human wills and, in the spirit of liberty, as broadly and evenly distributed as possible",^[25] and that "because of AI's surprising history, it's hard to predict when human-level AI might come within reach. When it does, it'll be important to have a leading research institution which can prioritize a good outcome for all over its own self-interest."^[30] Co-chair Sam Altman expected a decades-long project that eventually surpasses human intelligence.^[31]

Brockman met with Yoshua Bengio, one of the "founding fathers" of deep learning, and drew up a list of great AI researchers.^[18] Brockman was able to hire nine of them as the first employees in December 2015.^[18] OpenAI did not pay AI researchers salaries comparable to those of Facebook or Google.^[18] It also did not pay stock options which AI researchers typically get. Nevertheless, OpenAI spent $7 million on its first 52 employees in 2016.^[32] OpenAI's potential and mission drew these researchers to the firm; a Google employee said he was willing to leave Google for OpenAI "partly because of the very strong group of people and, to a very large extent, because of its mission."^[18] OpenAI co-founder Wojciech Zaremba stated that he turned down "borderline crazy" offers of two to three times his market value to join OpenAI instead.^[18]

In April 2016, OpenAI released a public beta of "OpenAI Gym", its platform for reinforcement learning research.^[33] Nvidia gifted its first DGX-1 supercomputer to OpenAI in August 2016 to help it train larger and more complex AI models with the capability of reducing processing time from six days to two hours.^[34][35] In December 2016, OpenAI released "Universe", a software platform for measuring and training an AI's general intelligence across the world's supply of games, websites, and other applications.^{[36][37][38][39]}

In 2019, OpenAI transitioned from nonprofit to "capped" for-profit, with the profit being capped at 100 times any investment.^[40] OpenAI formed three subsidiaries: the holding company OpenAI LP, the holding company OpenAI GP LLC, and the capped for-profit company OpenAI Global, LLC. The holding company OpenAI LP was owned by the nonprofit OpenAI, Inc., OpenAI employees, and investors, whereas OpenAI Global, LLC, was owned by OpenAI LP and Microsoft, the latter of which had a minority non-voting stake. The nonprofit OpenAI, Inc., controlled OpenAI GP LLC, which in turn controlled OpenAI LP and OpenAI Global, LLC.^{[8]: 1050–1051}

OpenAI stated that the capped-profit model would allow it to legally attract investment from venture funds and compensate employees with equity as competing AI companies did.^[41][42] Microsoft subsequently invested $1 billion in OpenAI LP, and OpenAI's services were migrated to Microsoft Azure.^[43] Since then, OpenAI systems have run on an Azure-based supercomputing platform.^[44][45]

The 2019 restructuring made the nonprofit OpenAI, Inc., the only controlling shareholder of OpenAI LP, which retained a formal fiduciary responsibility to OpenAI, Inc.'s nonprofit charter. A majority of OpenAI, Inc.'s board was barred from having financial stakes in OpenAI LP.^[41] In addition, minority members with a stake in OpenAI LP were barred from certain votes due to conflict of interest.^[42] Some researchers have argued that OpenAI's switch to for-profit status was inconsistent with OpenAI's claims to be "democratizing" AI.^[46]

In December 2024, OpenAI proposed a restructuring plan to convert the capped-profit into a Delaware-based public benefit corporation (PBC), remove its profit cap, and release it from the control of the nonprofit.^[8]: 1053 The nonprofit would sell its control and other assets, getting equity in return, and would use it to fund and pursue separate charitable projects, including in science and education. OpenAI's leadership described the change as necessary to secure additional investments, and claimed that the nonprofit's founding mission to ensure AGI "benefits all of humanity" would be better fulfilled.^[23]

The plan has been criticized by former employees. A legal letter named "Not For Private Gain" asked the attorneys general of California and Delaware to intervene, stating that the restructuring is illegal and would remove governance safeguards from the nonprofit and the attorneys general.^[47][48] The letter argues that OpenAI's complex structure was deliberately designed to remain accountable to its mission, without the conflicting pressure of maximizing profits. It contends that the nonprofit is best positioned to advance its mission of ensuring AGI benefits all of humanity by continuing to control OpenAI Global, LLC, whatever the amount of equity that it could get in exchange.^[49] PBCs can choose how they balance their mission with profit-making. Controlling shareholders have a large influence on how closely a PBC sticks to its mission.^[50][49] OpenAI subpoenaed six nonprofit organizations that opposed its for-profit transition, which the organizations described as an attempt to silence them.^[51][52]

On October 28, 2025, OpenAI announced that it had adopted the new PBC corporate structure after receiving approval from the attorneys general of California and Delaware.^[6] Under the new structure, OpenAI's for-profit branch became a public benefit corporation known as OpenAI Group PBC, while the nonprofit was renamed to the OpenAI Foundation.^[6][53] The OpenAI Foundation holds a 26% stake in the PBC, while Microsoft holds a 27% stake and the remaining 47% is owned by employees and other investors.^[6][54]

All members of the OpenAI Group PBC board of directors will be appointed by the OpenAI Foundation, which can remove them at any time.^[6] As of April 2026, all but one of the board members of the OpenAI Foundation were also board members of OpenAI Group PBC.^[55] The new structure allows the for-profit PBC to raise investor funds like most traditional tech companies, including through an initial public offering, which Altman claimed was the most likely path forward.^[53]

In January 2023, OpenAI Global, LLC was in talks for funding that would value the company at $29 billion, double its 2021 value.^[56] On January 23, 2023, Microsoft announced a new US$10 billion investment in OpenAI Global, LLC over multiple years, partially needed to use Microsoft's cloud-computing service Azure.^[57][58] Later that year, Microsoft used OpenAI models for its Copilot chatbot, integrated Copilot into Windows, and released mobile apps for the service.^[59][60][61]

Following OpenAI's 2025 restructuring, Microsoft owns a 27% stake in the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC, valued at $135 billion.^[54] In a deal announced the same day, OpenAI agreed to purchase $250 billion of Azure services, with Microsoft ceding their right of first refusal over OpenAI's future cloud computing purchases.^[54][62] As part of the deal, OpenAI will continue to share 20% of its revenue with Microsoft until it achieves AGI, which must now be verified by an independent panel of experts.^[53][62] The deal also loosened restrictions on both companies working with third parties, allowing Microsoft to pursue AGI independently and allowing OpenAI to develop products with other companies.^[54][6][62]

In 2017, OpenAI spent $7.9 million, a quarter of its functional expenses, on cloud computing alone.^[63] In comparison, DeepMind's total expenses in 2017 were $442 million. In the summer of 2018, training OpenAI's Dota 2 bots required renting 128,000 CPUs and 256 GPUs from Google for multiple weeks.^[41] Microsoft's 2019 investment in OpenAI, totaling $1 billion, reportedly kicked off the "contemporary AI boom".^[64][65]

In October 2024, OpenAI completed a $6.6 billion capital raise with a $157 billion valuation including investments from Microsoft, Nvidia, and SoftBank.^[66]

On January 21, 2025, Donald Trump announced The Stargate Project, a joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank and MGX to build an AI infrastructure system in conjunction with the US government. The project takes its name from OpenAI's existing "Stargate" supercomputer project and is estimated to cost $500 billion. The partners planned to fund the project over the next four years.^[67] In July, the United States Department of Defense announced that OpenAI had received a $200 million contract for AI in the military, along with Anthropic, Google, and xAI.^[68] In the same month, the company made a deal with the UK Government to use ChatGPT and other AI tools in public services.^[69][70] OpenAI subsequently began a $50 million fund to support nonprofit and community organizations.^[71]

In April 2025, OpenAI raised $40 billion at a $300 billion post-money valuation, which was the highest-value private technology deal in history. The financing round was led by SoftBank, with other participants including Microsoft, Coatue, Altimeter and Thrive.^[72][73]

In July 2025, the company reported annualized revenue of $12 billion.^[74][75] This was an increase from $3.7 billion in 2024, which was driven by ChatGPT subscriptions, which reached 20 million paid subscribers by April 2025, up from 15.5 million at the end of 2024, alongside a rapidly expanding enterprise customer base that grew to five million business users.^[76][77][78]

In February 2026, OpenAI raised $110 billion at a $730 billion valuation, led by Amazon ($50 billion), SoftBank ($30 billion), and Nvidia ($30 billion), surpassing the prior round as the largest private technology fundraise in history.^[79] The round was later extended to $120 billion in March 2026.^[80] In April 2026, the company announced that it closed a funding round of $122 billion in committed capital at a post-money valuation of $852 billion.^[81]

OpenAI employs a tiered revenue model that combines free consumer access, paid subscription services, enterprise licensing, and application programming interface (API) usage-based pricing.^[82] The model reflects a freemium software as a service (SaaS) structure in which basic functionality is provided at no cost, while advanced capabilities are offered through paid plans such as ChatGPT Plus and enterprise solutions. Freemium SaaS models are designed to convert free users into paying customers by emphasizing perceived value, user satisfaction, and feature differentiation.^[83] Research on SaaS conversion indicates that perceived usefulness and alignment with user needs are central predictors of willingness to subscribe.^[83] Studies applying the technology acceptance model (TAM) to ChatGPT usage have found that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use significantly influence behavioral intention and continued adoption.^[84] Workplace adoption research has similarly reported that perceived intelligence and information support increase knowledge acquisition and strengthen intent to use generative AI systems.^[85] OpenAI's subscription and enterprise offerings are structured around scalable compute usage and API integration into third-party platforms.^[82] In 2025, the company reported significant revenue growth associated with expanded computing infrastructure and enterprise adoption.^[86] The introduction of diversified revenue streams, including subscription tiers, enterprise contracts, API licensing, and advertising experiments in certain segments, reflects a multi-channel monetization approach.^[87] Financial market research has also documented abnormal stock returns among publicly traded firms referencing ChatGPT in regulatory filings, suggesting that generative AI adoption has been associated with investor expectations of productivity and revenue effects.^[88] The sustainability of freemium AI platforms has been linked in academic literature to continued enterprise integration across sectors, including finance, supply chains, and sustainability risk management.^[89][90]

The company's cash burn remains high because of the intensive computational costs required to train and operate large language models. It projects an $8 billion operating loss in 2025.^[91][92] OpenAI reports revised long-term spending projections totaling approximately $115 billion through 2029,^[93] with annual expenditures projected to escalate significantly, reaching $17 billion in 2026, $35 billion in 2027, and $45 billion in 2028.^[94][95] These expenditures are primarily allocated toward expanding compute infrastructure, developing proprietary AI chips, constructing data centers, and funding intensive model training programs, with more than half of the spending through the end of the decade expected to support research-intensive compute for model training and development.^[96]

The company's financial strategy prioritizes market expansion and technological advancement over near-term profitability, with OpenAI targeting cash-flow-positive operations by 2029 and projecting revenue of approximately $200 billion by 2030.^[94] This aggressive spending trajectory underscores both the enormous capital requirements of scaling cutting-edge AI technology and OpenAI's commitment to maintaining its position as a leader in the artificial intelligence industry.^[97]

In October 2025, OpenAI completed an employee share sale of up to $10 billion to existing investors which valued the company at $500 billion. The deal values OpenAI as the most valuable privately owned company in the world—surpassing SpaceX as the world's most valuable private company.^[98]

In April 2026, reports indicated that OpenAI projected approximately $2.5 billion in advertising revenue for the year, with estimates rising to $100 billion annually by 2030, highlighting advertising as a key component of its future business strategy.^[99]

In August 2023, it was announced that OpenAI had acquired the New York-based start-up Global Illumination, a company that deploys AI to develop digital infrastructure and creative tools.^[100]

In June 2024, OpenAI acquired Multi, a startup focused on remote collaboration.^[101]

On February 10, 2025, a consortium of investors led by Elon Musk submitted a $97.4 billion unsolicited bid to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, declaring willingness to match or exceed any better offer.^[102][103] The offer was rejected on 14 February 2025, with OpenAI stating that it was not for sale,^[104] but the offer complicated Altman's restructuring plan by suggesting a lower bar for how much the nonprofit should be valued.^[103]

In March 2025, OpenAI reached a deal with CoreWeave to acquire $350 million worth of CoreWeave shares and access to AI infrastructure, in return for $11.9 billion paid over five years. Microsoft was already CoreWeave's biggest customer in 2024.^[105] Alongside their other business dealings, OpenAI and Microsoft were renegotiating the terms of their partnership to facilitate a potential future initial public offering by OpenAI, while ensuring Microsoft's continued access to advanced AI models.^[12] On May 21, 2025 OpenAI announced the $6.5 billion acquisition of io, an AI hardware start-up founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive in 2024.^{[106][107][108]}

In September 2025, OpenAI agreed to acquire the product testing startup Statsig for $1.1 billion in an all-stock deal and appointed Statsig's founding CEO Vijaye Raji as OpenAI's chief technology officer of applications.^[109] The company also announced development of an AI-driven hiring service designed to rival LinkedIn.^[110] OpenAI acquired personal finance app Roi in October 2025.^[111] In October 2025, OpenAI acquired Software Applications Incorporated, the developer of Sky, a macOS-based natural language interface designed to operate across desktop applications. The Sky team joined OpenAI, and the company announced plans to integrate Sky's capabilities into ChatGPT.^[112] In December 2025, it was announced OpenAI had agreed to acquire Neptune, an AI tooling startup that helps companies track and manage model training, for an undisclosed amount.^[113]

In January 2026, it was announced OpenAI had acquired healthcare technology startup Torch for approximately $60 million. The acquisition followed the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT Health product and was intended to strengthen the company's medical data and healthcare artificial intelligence capabilities.^[114][115] OpenAI acquired Python tool developer Astral in March 2026.^[116]

OpenAI has been criticized for outsourcing the annotation of data sets to Sama, a company based in San Francisco that employed workers in Kenya. These annotations were used to train an AI model to detect toxicity, which could then be used to moderate toxic content, notably from ChatGPT's training data and outputs. However, these pieces of text usually contained detailed descriptions of various types of violence, including sexual violence. The investigation uncovered that OpenAI began sending snippets of data to Sama as early as November 2021. The four Sama employees interviewed by Time described themselves as mentally scarred. OpenAI paid Sama $12.50 per hour of work, and Sama was redistributing the equivalent of between $1.32 and $2.00 per hour post-tax to its annotators. Sama's spokesperson said that the $12.50 was also covering other implicit costs, among which were infrastructure expenses, quality assurance and management.^[117]

In 2024, OpenAI began collaborating with Broadcom to design a custom AI chip capable of both training and inference, targeted for mass production in 2026 and to be manufactured by TSMC on a 3 nm process node. This initiative intended to reduce OpenAI's dependence on Nvidia GPUs, which are costly and face high demand in the market.^{[118][119][120]}

In January 2024, Arizona State University purchased ChatGPT Enterprise in OpenAI's first deal with a university.^[121]

In June 2024, Apple Inc. signed a contract with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT features into its products as part of its new Apple Intelligence initiative.^[122][123]

In June 2025, OpenAI began renting Google Cloud's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to support ChatGPT and related services, marking its first meaningful use of non‑Nvidia AI chips.^[124]

In September 2025, it was revealed that OpenAI signed a contract with Oracle to purchase $300 billion in computing power over the next five years.^[125]

In September 2025, OpenAI and NVIDIA announced a memorandum of understanding that included a potential deployment of at least 10 gigawatts of NVIDIA systems and a $100 billion investment from NVIDIA in OpenAI. OpenAI expected the negotiations to be completed within weeks. As of January 2026, this has not been realized, and the two sides are rethinking the future of their partnership.^[126][127]

In October 2025, OpenAI announced a multi-billion dollar deal with AMD.^[128] OpenAI committed to purchasing six gigawatts worth of AMD chips, starting with the MI450. OpenAI will have the option to buy up to 160 million shares of AMD, about 10% of the company, depending on development, performance and share price targets.^[129]

In December 2025, Disney said it would make a $1 billion investment in OpenAI, and signed a three-year licensing deal that will let users generate videos using Sora—OpenAI's short-form AI video platform. More than 200 Disney, Marvel, Star Wars and Pixar characters would be available to OpenAI users.^[130] Disney would later exit this deal in late March 2026, due to Sora being discontinued.^[131][132]

In early 2026, Amazon entered advanced discussions to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI as part of a potential artificial intelligence partnership. Under the proposed agreement, OpenAI's models could be integrated into Amazon's digital assistant Alexa and other internal projects.^[133]

OpenAI provides LLMs to the Artificial Intelligence Cyber Challenge and to the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.^[134] In October 2024, The Intercept revealed that OpenAI's tools are considered "essential" for AFRICOM's mission and included in an "Exception to Fair Opportunity" contractual agreement between the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and Microsoft.^[135] In December 2024, OpenAI said it would partner with defense-tech company Anduril to build drone defense technologies for the United States and its allies.^[136]

In 2025, OpenAI's Chief Product Officer, Kevin Weil, was commissioned lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army to join Detachment 201 as senior advisor.^[137]

In June 2025, the DoD awarded OpenAI a $200 million one-year contract to develop AI tools for military and national security applications. OpenAI announced a new program, OpenAI for Government, to give federal, state, and local governments access to its models, including ChatGPT.^[138][139]

On 28 February 2026, after OpenAI's competitor Anthropic refused to authorize the DoD to use its AI systems for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons systems, it was labeled a "supply-chain risk" by the DoD and the Trump administration decided to stop using it across the government.^[140] The same day, OpenAI announced that it had reached an agreement with the DoD to deploy its models in the government's classified network.^[141] CEO Sam Altman wrote, "Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems", that the DoD agrees with this, and that this is included in their agreement.^[141][142] However, while the agreement mentioned existing law and allowed OpenAI to implement some technical safeguards, it did not incorporate legally binding prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.^[143][144] Following backlash over the potential use of ChatGPT for surveillance, Altman amended the contract to include more safeguards, though only excerpts of the contract were made public and critics remained concerned that it was purposefully vague and contained carve-outs for domestic surveillance.^[145][146]

• ChatGPT
  • ChatGPT Deep Research
  • ChatGPT Search
  • ChatGPT Atlas
• OpenAI Codex
• Sora (text-to-video model)
• Whisper (speech recognition system)
• OpenAI Prism
• An API that gives access to various OpenAI models

In February 2019, GPT-2 was announced, which gained attention for its ability to generate human-like text.^[147]

In 2020, OpenAI announced GPT-3, a language model trained on large internet datasets. GPT-3 is aimed at natural language answering questions, but it can also translate between languages and coherently generate improvised text. It also announced that an associated API, named the API, would form the heart of its first commercial product.^[148]

Eleven employees left OpenAI, mostly between December 2020 and January 2021, in order to establish Anthropic.^[149]

In 2021, OpenAI introduced DALL-E, a specialized deep learning model adept at generating complex digital images from textual descriptions, utilizing a variant of the GPT-3 architecture.^[150]

In December 2022, OpenAI received widespread media coverage after launching a free preview of ChatGPT, its new AI chatbot based on GPT-3.5. According to OpenAI, the preview received over a million signups within the first five days.^[152] According to anonymous sources cited by Reuters in December 2022, OpenAI Global, LLC was projecting $200 million of revenue in 2023 and $1 billion in revenue in 2024.^[153]

After ChatGPT was launched, Google announced a similar chatbot, Bard, amid internal concerns that ChatGPT could threaten Google's position as a primary source of online information.^[154][155]

On February 7, 2023, Microsoft announced that it was building AI technology based on the same foundation as ChatGPT into Microsoft Bing, Edge, Microsoft 365 and other products.^[156]

On March 14, 2023, OpenAI released GPT-4, both as an API (with a waitlist) and as a feature of ChatGPT Plus.^[157]

On November 6, 2023, OpenAI launched GPTs, allowing individuals to create customized versions of ChatGPT for specific purposes, further expanding the possibilities of AI applications across various industries.^[158] On November 14, 2023, OpenAI announced they temporarily suspended new sign-ups for ChatGPT Plus due to high demand.^[159] Access for newer subscribers re-opened a month later on December 13.^[160]

In December 2024, the company launched the Sora model.^[161][162] It also launched OpenAI o1, an early reasoning model that was internally codenamed strawberry.^[163] Additionally, ChatGPT Pro—a $200/month subscription service offering unlimited o1 access and enhanced voice features—was introduced, and preliminary benchmark results for the upcoming OpenAI o3 models were shared.^[164]

On January 23, 2025, OpenAI released Operator, an AI agent and tool for accessing websites to execute goals defined by users. The feature was only available to Pro users in the United States.^[165][166] OpenAI released deep research agent, nine days later. It scored a 27% accuracy on the benchmark Humanity's Last Exam (HLE).^[167] Altman later stated GPT-4.5 would be the last model without full chain-of-thought reasoning.^[168][169]

In July 2025, according to OpenAI, one of its experimental models performed at a gold medal-level at the International Mathematical Olympiad.^[170][171]

On October 6, 2025, OpenAI displayed its Agent Builder platform during the company's DevDay event. The platform includes a visual drag-and-drop interface for agentic workflows.^{[citation needed]}

On October 21, 2025, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Atlas, a web browser which integrates ChatGPT into web navigation.^{[172][173][174]}

On December 11, 2025, OpenAI announced GPT-5.2.^[175]

On January 27, 2026, OpenAI introduced Prism, a LaTeX-native workspace meant to assist scientists with research and writing, such as drafting scientific papers, managing citations, and formatting equations.^{[176][non-primary source needed]}

In early 2026, reports indicated that OpenAI was working on a collaborative software development platform designed to compete with services such as GitHub and GitLab.^[177]

In March 2023, the company was criticized for disclosing particularly few technical details about products like GPT-4, contradicting its initial commitment to openness and making it harder for independent researchers to replicate its work and develop safeguards. OpenAI cited competitiveness and safety concerns to justify this repudiation. OpenAI's former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever argued in 2023 that open-sourcing increasingly capable models was increasingly risky, and that the safety reasons for not open-sourcing the most potent AI models would become "obvious" in a few years.^[178]

In September 2025, OpenAI published a study on how people use ChatGPT for everyday tasks.^[179][180] The study found that "non-work tasks" (according to an LLM-based classifier) account for more than 72 percent of all ChatGPT usage, with a minority of overall usage related to business productivity.^[181]

In July 2023, OpenAI launched the superalignment project, aiming within four years to determine how to align future superintelligent systems.^[182] OpenAI promised to dedicate 20% of its computing resources to the project, although the company's employees later reported that the company only allocated 1–2% of its resources here.^[55][183] OpenAI ended the project in May 2024 after its co-leaders Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike left the company.^[184]

In August 2025, OpenAI was criticized after thousands of private ChatGPT conversations were inadvertently exposed to public search engines like Google due to an experimental "share with search engines" feature. The opt-in toggle, intended to allow users to make specific chats discoverable, resulted in some discussions including personal details such as names, locations, and intimate topics appearing in search results when users accidentally enabled it while sharing links. OpenAI announced the feature's permanent removal on August 1, 2025, and the company began coordinating with search providers to remove the exposed content, emphasizing that it was not a security breach but a design flaw that heightened privacy risks. CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the issue in a podcast, noting users often treat ChatGPT as a confidant for deeply personal matters, which amplified concerns about AI handling sensitive data.^{[185][186][187]}

• CEO and co-founder: Sam Altman, former president of the start-up accelerator Y Combinator
• President and co-founder: Greg Brockman, former CTO, 3rd employee of Stripe^[188]
• Chief Scientist Officer: Jakub Pachocki, former Director of Research at OpenAI^[189]
• Chief Operating Officer: Brad Lightcap, previously at Y Combinator and JPMorgan Chase^[190]
• Chief Financial Officer: Sarah Friar, former Nextdoor CEO and former CFO at Block, Inc.^[191]
• Chief Product Officer: Kevin Weil, previously at Twitter, Inc. and Meta Platforms^[191]
• Chief Research Officer: Mark Chen, former SVP of Research at OpenAI^[192]
• Chief Compliance Officer: Scott Schools, former Chief Compliance Officer of Uber
• Chief Global Affairs Officer: Chris Lehane, former head of global policy at Airbnb^[193]
• Chief Economist: Aaron Chatterji, professor of business and public policy at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business^[194]
• CEO of Applications: Fidji Simo, former CEO of Instacart^[195]

• Bret Taylor (chairman), former chairman of Twitter's board of directors and co-CEO of Salesforce
• Sam Altman
• Adam D'Angelo, co-founder and CEO of Quora
• Sue Desmond-Hellmann, former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Nicole Seligman, attorney and former executive vice president of the Sony Corporation
• Paul Nakasone, former Director of the National Security Agency (2018–2024)^[196]
• Zico Kolter, computer scientist^[197]
• Adebayo Ogunlesi, managing partner at Global Infrastructure Partners^[198][199]

• Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder^[200]
• Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder^[200]
• Jessica Livingston, a founding partner of Y Combinator^[188]
• Elon Musk, co-founder^[188]

On November 17, 2023, Sam Altman was removed as CEO when its board of directors (composed of Helen Toner, Ilya Sutskever, Adam D'Angelo and Tasha McCauley) cited a lack of confidence in him. Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati took over as interim CEO. Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, was also removed as chairman of the board^[201][202] and resigned from the company's presidency shortly thereafter.^[203] Three senior OpenAI researchers subsequently resigned: director of research and GPT-4 lead Jakub Pachocki, head of AI risk Aleksander Mądry, and researcher Szymon Sidor.^[204][205]

On November 18, 2023, there were reportedly talks of Altman returning as CEO amid pressure placed upon the board by investors such as Microsoft and Thrive Capital, who objected to Altman's departure.^[206] Although Altman himself spoke in favor of returning to OpenAI, he has since stated that he considered starting a new company and bringing former OpenAI employees with him if talks to reinstate him did not work out.^[207] Altman insisted multiple times that all board members who supported his removal should resign;^[55] the board members agreed "in principle" to resign if Altman returned.^[208] On November 19, 2023, negotiations with Altman to return failed and Murati was replaced by Emmett Shear as interim CEO.^[209] The board initially contacted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (a former OpenAI executive) about replacing Altman, and proposed a merger of the two companies, but both offers were declined.^[210]

On November 20, 2023, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced Altman and Brockman would be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team, but added that they were still committed to OpenAI despite recent events.^[211] Before the partnership with Microsoft was finalized, Altman gave the board another opportunity to negotiate with him.^[212] About 738 of OpenAI's 770 employees, including Murati and Sutskever, signed an open letter stating they would quit their jobs and join Microsoft if the board did not rehire Altman and then resign.^[213][214] This prompted OpenAI investors to consider legal action against the board as well.^[215] In response, OpenAI management sent an internal memo to employees stating that negotiations with Altman and the board had resumed and would take some time.^[216]

On November 21, 2023, after continued negotiations, Altman and Brockman returned to the company in their prior roles along with a reconstructed board made up of new members Bret Taylor (as chairman) and Lawrence Summers, with D'Angelo remaining.^[217][218] According to subsequent reporting, shortly before Altman's firing, some employees raised concerns to the board about how he had handled the safety implications of a recent internal AI capability discovery.^[219] On November 29, 2023, OpenAI announced that an anonymous Microsoft employee had joined the board as a non-voting member to observe the company's operations;^[220] Microsoft resigned from the board in July 2024.^[221]

In February 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed OpenAI's internal communication to determine if Altman's alleged lack of candor misled investors.^[222] Following the temporary removal of Sam Altman and his return, many employees gradually left OpenAI, including most of the original leadership team and a significant number of AI safety researchers.^[223][224]

In 2018, Musk resigned from his Board of Directors seat, citing "a potential future conflict [of interest]" with his role as CEO of Tesla due to Tesla's AI development for self-driving cars.^[225] OpenAI stated that Musk's financial contributions were below $45 million.^[226]

On March 3, 2023, Reid Hoffman resigned from his board seat, citing a desire to avoid conflicts of interest with his investments in AI companies via Greylock Partners, and his co-founding of the AI startup Inflection AI. Hoffman remained on the board of Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI.^[227]

In May 2024, Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever resigned and was succeeded by Jakub Pachocki. Co-leader Jan Leike also departed amid concerns over safety and trust.^[189][228] OpenAI then signed deals with Reddit, News Corp, Axios, and Vox Media.^[229][230] Paul Nakasone then joined the board of OpenAI.^[231]

In August 2024, cofounder John Schulman left OpenAI to join Anthropic, and OpenAI's president Greg Brockman took extended leave until November.^[232][233]

In September 2024, CTO Mira Murati left the company.^[234][235]

In November 2025, Lawrence Summers resigned from the board of directors.^[236]

In May 2023, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever posted recommendations for the governance of superintelligence.^[237] They stated that superintelligence could happen within the next 10 years, allowing a "dramatically more prosperous future" and that "given the possibility of existential risk, we can't just be reactive". They proposed creating an international watchdog organization similar to IAEA to oversee AI systems above a certain capability threshold, suggesting that relatively weak AI systems on the other side should not be overly regulated. They also called for more technical safety research for superintelligences, and asked for more coordination, for example through governments launching a joint project which "many current efforts become part of".^[237][238]

In July 2023, the FTC issued a civil investigative demand to OpenAI to investigate whether the company's data security and privacy practices to develop ChatGPT were unfair or harmed consumers (including by reputational harm) in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914.^{[239][240][241]} These are typically preliminary investigative matters and are nonpublic, but the FTC's document was leaked.^[242][241] In July 2023, the FTC launched an investigation into OpenAI over allegations that the company scraped public data and published false and defamatory information. They asked OpenAI for comprehensive information about its technology and privacy safeguards, as well as any steps taken to prevent the recurrence of situations in which its chatbot generated false and derogatory content about people.^[243] The agency also raised concerns about 'circular' spending arrangements—for example, Microsoft extending Azure credits to OpenAI while both companies shared engineering talent—and warned that such structures could negatively affect the public.^[244]

In September 2024, OpenAI's global affairs chief endorsed the UK's "smart" AI regulation during testimony to a House of Lords committee.^[245]

In February 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that the company is interested in collaborating with the People's Republic of China, despite regulatory restrictions imposed by the U.S. government.^[246] This shift comes in response to the growing influence of the Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek, which has disrupted the AI market with open models, including DeepSeek V3 and DeepSeek R1.^[247][248] Following DeepSeek's market emergence, OpenAI enhanced security protocols to protect proprietary development techniques from industrial espionage. Some industry observers noted similarities between DeepSeek's model distillation approach and OpenAI's methodology, though no formal intellectual property claim was filed.^[249]

According to Oliver Roberts, in March 2025, the United States had 781 state AI bills or laws. OpenAI advocated for preempting state AI laws with federal laws.^[250] According to Scott Kohler, OpenAI has opposed California's AI legislation and suggested that the state bill encroaches on a more competent federal government.^[251] Public Citizen opposed a federal preemption on AI and pointed to OpenAI's growth and valuation as evidence that existing state laws have not hampered innovation.^[252]

In early 2026, OpenAI provided the entire initial funding for the Parents & Kids Safe AI Coalition. Several organizations contacted on behalf of the coalition reported being unaware of OpenAI's involvement.^[253]

Before May 2024, OpenAI required departing employees to sign a lifelong non-disparagement agreement forbidding them from criticizing OpenAI and acknowledging the existence of the agreement. Daniel Kokotajlo, a former employee, publicly stated that he forfeited his vested equity in OpenAI in order to leave without signing the agreement.^[254][255] Sam Altman stated that he was unaware of the equity cancellation provision, and that OpenAI never enforced it to cancel any employee's vested equity.^[256] However, leaked documents and emails refute this claim.^[257] On May 23, 2024, OpenAI sent a memo releasing former employees from the agreement.^[258]

OpenAI was sued for copyright infringement by authors Sarah Silverman, Matthew Butterick, Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad in July 2023.^{[259][260][261]} In September 2023, 17 authors, including George R. R. Martin, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and Jonathan Franzen, joined the Authors Guild in filing a class action lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the company's technology was illegally using their copyrighted work.^[262][263] The New York Times also sued the company in late December 2023.^[260][264] In May 2024 it was revealed that OpenAI had destroyed its Books1 and Books2 training datasets, which were used in the training of GPT-3, and which the Authors Guild believed to have contained over 100,000 copyrighted books.^[265]

In 2021, OpenAI developed a speech recognition tool called Whisper. OpenAI used it to transcribe more than one million hours of YouTube videos into text for training GPT-4. The automated transcription of YouTube videos raised concerns within OpenAI employees regarding potential violations of YouTube's terms of service, which prohibit the use of videos for applications independent of the platform, as well as any type of automated access to its videos. Despite these concerns, the project proceeded with notable involvement from OpenAI's president, Greg Brockman. The resulting dataset proved instrumental in training GPT-4.^[266]

In February 2024, The Intercept as well as Raw Story and Alternate Media Inc. filed lawsuit against OpenAI on copyright litigation ground.^[267][268] The lawsuit is said to have charted a new legal strategy for digital-only publishers to sue OpenAI.^[269]

On April 30, 2024, eight newspapers filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming illegal harvesting of their copyrighted articles. The suing publications included The Mercury News, The Denver Post, The Orange County Register, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, Sun Sentinel, and New York Daily News.^[270]

In June 2023, a lawsuit claimed that OpenAI scraped 300 billion words online without consent and without registering as a data broker. It was filed in San Francisco, California, by sixteen anonymous plaintiffs.^[271] They also claimed that OpenAI and its partner as well as customer Microsoft continued to unlawfully collect and use personal data from millions of consumers worldwide to train artificial intelligence models.^[272]

On May 22, 2024, OpenAI entered into an agreement with News Corp to integrate news content from The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, The Times, and The Sunday Times into its AI platform. Meanwhile, other publications like The New York Times chose to sue OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement over the use of their content to train AI models.^[273] In November 2024, a coalition of Canadian news outlets, including the Toronto Star, Metroland Media, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press and CBC, sued OpenAI for using their news articles to train its software without permission.^[274]

In October 2024 during a New York Times interview, Suchir Balaji accused OpenAI of violating copyright law in developing its commercial LLMs which he had helped engineer. He was a likely witness in a major copyright trial against the AI company, and was one of several of its current or former employees named in court filings as potentially having documents relevant to the case. On November 26, 2024, Balaji died by suicide. His death prompted the circulation of conspiracy theories alleging that he had been deliberately silenced.^[275][276] California Congressman Ro Khanna endorsed calls for an investigation.^[277][278]

On April 24, 2025, Ziff Davis sued OpenAI in Delaware federal court for copyright infringement. Ziff Davis is known for publications such as ZDNet, PCMag, CNET, IGN and Lifehacker.^[279][280]

In April 2023, the EU's European Data Protection Board (EDPB) formed a dedicated task force on ChatGPT "to foster cooperation and to exchange information on possible enforcement actions conducted by data protection authorities" based on the "enforcement action undertaken by the Italian data protection authority against OpenAI about the ChatGPT service".^[281]

In late April 2024 NOYB filed a complaint with the Austrian Datenschutzbehörde against OpenAI for violating the European General Data Protection Regulation. A text created with ChatGPT gave a false date of birth for a living person without giving the individual the option to see the personal data used in the process. A request to correct the mistake was denied. Additionally, neither the recipients of ChatGPT's work nor the sources used, could be made available, OpenAI claimed.^[282]

OpenAI was criticized for lifting its ban on using ChatGPT for "military and warfare". Up until January 10, 2024, its "usage policies" included a ban on "activity that has high risk of physical harm, including", specifically, "weapons development" and "military and warfare". Its new policies prohibit "[using] our service to harm yourself or others" and to "develop or use weapons".^[283][284]

On February 29, 2024, Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, accusing them of shifting focus from public benefit to profit maximization—a case OpenAI dismissed as "incoherent" and "frivolous", though Musk later revived legal action against Altman and others in August.^{[285][286][287][288]}

On April 9, 2024, OpenAI countersued Musk in federal court, alleging that he had engaged in "bad-faith tactics" to slow the company's progress and seize its innovations for his personal benefit. OpenAI also argued that Musk had previously supported the creation of a for-profit structure and had expressed interest in controlling OpenAI himself. The countersuit seeks damages and legal measures to prevent further alleged interference.^[289]

In August 2025, the parents of a 16-year-old boy who died by suicide filed a wrongful death lawsuit, Raine v. OpenAI, against the company (and CEO Sam Altman), alleging that months of conversations with ChatGPT about mental health and methods of self-harm contributed to their son's death and that safeguards were inadequate for minors. OpenAI expressed condolences and said it was strengthening protections (including updated crisis response behavior and parental controls). Coverage described it as a first-of-its-kind wrongful death case targeting the company's chatbot. The complaint was filed in California state court in San Francisco.^[290]

In November 2025, the Social Media Victims Law Center and Tech Justice Law Project filed seven lawsuits against OpenAI, of which four lawsuits alleged wrongful death.^[291] The suits were filed on behalf of Zane Shamblin, 23, of Texas; Amaurie Lacey, 17, of Georgia; Joshua Enneking, 26, of Florida; and Joe Ceccanti, 48, of Oregon, who each committed suicide after prolonged ChatGPT usage.^[292]

In December 2025, First County Bank filed a lawsuit against OpenAI after Suzanne Adams was murdered by her 56-year-old son. The lawsuit alleges that over months of conversations, ChatGPT validated many paranoid beliefs, such as that his mother was spying on him and that she attempted to poison him using drugs siphoned through his car air vents. OpenAI said they would make ChatGPT safer for users disconnected from reality.^[293][294]

After 8 victims were killed on February 10, 2026, in mass shootings in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, it emerged that OpenAI had banned an account belonging to the perpetrator due to violent queries approximately 7 months prior to the attacks. OpenAI opted not to report the account to authorities at the time.^[295][296]

The Wall Street Journal reported that the perpetrator "described scenarios [to ChatGPT] involving gun violence over the course of several days", and that these messages were "flagged by an automated review system" and "alarmed employees at OpenAI". A dozen employees debated whether to take action, some urging leaders to alert Canadian law enforcement.^[297][298]

Canadian officials summoned OpenAI's safety team to Ottawa, criticizing their escalation protocols. The meeting highlighted concerns about how and when OpenAI reports potentially dangerous user behavior to authorities and intensified scrutiny of its safety-oversight processes.^[299] On February 23, BC Premier David Eby said, "From the outside, it looks like OpenAI had the opportunity to prevent this tragedy, to prevent this horrific loss of life, to prevent there from being dead children in British Columbia".^[300] Canada's federal AI Minister Evan Solomon said, "I want [OpenAI] to give us details of what their protocols are, [and] what they are specifically in Canada".^[300]

• Anthropic – US-based AI company
• Google DeepMind – AI research laboratory
• Lumo – AI assistant
• Meta AI – Artificial intelligence division of Meta Platforms
• Mistral AI – French artificial intelligence company
• Perplexity AI – American artificial intelligence company
• xAI – American artificial intelligence company

• Official website