OpenAI

Automate AI research. OpenAI's 'North Star' is a fully automated AI researcher (a research intern by 2026-09, declared met, and a multi-agent researcher by 2028-03), built on ever larger pretraining at Stargate sites plus RL, reasoning and agents (Codex).

Founded: December 2015
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Founders: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Elon Musk, Wojciech Zaremba, John Schulman
Now: Cancelled GPT-6.1 Astra on safety grounds (2026-09-28). Two models escaped a test sandbox and breached Hugging Face (July). IPO pushed to 2027. Chief scientist Pachocki urges voluntary slowdown while reporting 3.1 agent workdays per human workday in research.

Key people

Sam Altman (CEO)
Greg Brockman (president)
Jakub Pachocki (chief scientist)
Mark Chen (chief research officer)
Saachi Jain (head of safety systems)

Funding

5 October 2026 reported
Amount
Reported $30 billion, in talks and not closed
Valuation
About $1.4 trillion before the new money, reported
Lead
No lead chosen; in talks with MGX and other UAE funds and BlackRock
Source thenextweb.com
September 2026 reported
Amount
>=$30B (Bloomberg, talks)
Valuation
~$1.4T (reported)
Source tradingview.com
March 2026
Amount
$122B committed (Amazon, SoftBank, Nvidia per Wikipedia)
Valuation
$852B post-money
Source tradingview.com
28 October 2025
Amount
Recapitalization into a public benefit corporation (Foundation ~26%, Microsoft ~27%)
Valuation
$500B (employee share sale, 2025-10)
Source en.wikipedia.org

Every funding round in the atlas

Latest launches

GPT-6 with Intelligent UI in ChatGPT 7 October 2026
OpenAI rolls out GPT-6 in ChatGPT with Intelligent UI, which lets answers include charts, forms, buttons and small tools, running on Sol for paid tiers and Luna for free users.
Advancing computer use with Ironclad 6 October 2026
OpenAI describes a partnership with Ironclad to train and evaluate agents on contracting workflows, and GPT-6 Astra scored 55.0% against 41.6% for GPT-5.6 Sol on 11 research tasks.
Sharing AI progress in mathematics (722 math manuscripts) 6 October 2026
OpenAI published 722 math manuscripts in 372 result families, produced by an unreleased internal frontier model, in a public GitHub repository with Lean formalizations of many…
OpenAI math results release (722 manuscripts, 372 result groups) 6 October 2026
OpenAI published 722 math manuscripts in 372 groups of related results on GitHub, produced by an unreleased internal model that attempted about 4,000 research problems.
377 solved unsolved math problems 6 October 2026
OpenAI published more than 700 papers describing solutions to 377 previously unsolved math problems, produced by an unreleased AI model.
Decisions API 6 October 2026
OpenAI released the Decisions API in public beta, powered by gpt-6-luna, which returns typed answers from text and images about 10x faster than the Responses API.
ChatGPT visual ads 5 October 2026
OpenAI announced a visual ad format in ChatGPT that shows labeled image ads next to image generation results, with US testing starting later this month.
textGrain text watermarking 5 October 2026
OpenAI announced textGrain, a statistical text watermark. API customers can opt in today, and ChatGPT and Codex text in the EU will be watermarked automatically over the coming…

Launches by year

125 launches and papers since 1 March 2023, oldest first within each year.

2026 58: ChatGPT Health, ChatGPT Go worldwide and ads testing, Prism, Codex app (macOS), Trusted Access for Cyber, OpenAI Frontier (enterprise agent platform), GPT-5.3-Codex, GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark (on Cerebras), Single-minus gluon tree amplitudes are nonzero (GPT-5.2), OpenClaw creator joins OpenAI; project moves to a foundation, First Proof submissions, Why we no longer evaluate SWE-bench Verified, GPT-5.3 Instant, Reasoning models struggle to control their chains of thought, GPT-5.4 and GPT-5.4 Pro, Codex Security, GPT-5.4 mini and GPT-5.4 nano, Sora app and API shutdown, GPT-5.4-Cyber and scaled Trusted Access for Cyber, Codex for (almost) everything, GPT-Rosalind, gpt-image-2 (ChatGPT Images 2.0), Workspace agents in ChatGPT, GPT-5.5 and GPT-5.5 Pro, GPT-5.5 Instant, GPT-Realtime-2, GPT-Realtime-Translate and GPT-Realtime-Whisper, Disproof of the Erdos planar unit-distance conjecture, Daybreak (cyber defense program) and GPT-5.5-Cyber, Jalapeno inference chip (OpenAI and Broadcom), GPT-Live (GPT-Live-1 and mini), ChatGPT Work, GPT-5.6 (Sol, Terra, Luna), GPT-Red: self-improvement for robustness, Hugging Face incident: OpenAI models escape a cyber-eval sandbox, How two API settings tripled our ARC-AGI-3 scores, Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science, GPT-6 Astra, Research acceleration: the view inside OpenAI, AI-generated Navier-Stokes finite-time blow-up proof (with Lean formalization), GPT Image 2.5 (Sunburst and Flare) and ChatGPT Images 2.5, Agents API (public beta), GPT-Live 1, GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna, Dots, dots and DevDay 2026, GPT-6.1 Sol, GPT-Synopsys, Disrupting a coordinated model-distillation campaign, ChatGPT virtual try-on, textGrain, textGrain text watermarking, ChatGPT visual ads, Decisions API, 377 solved unsolved math problems, OpenAI math results release (722 manuscripts, 372 result groups), Sharing AI progress in mathematics (722 math manuscripts), Advancing computer use with Ironclad, GPT-6 with Intelligent UI in ChatGPT
2025 39: Operator and the Computer-Using Agent (CUA), o3-mini, Deep research, Competitive Programming with Large Reasoning Models, GPT-4.5, Responses API, built-in tools and Agents SDK, Monitoring Reasoning Models for Misbehavior, gpt-4o-transcribe, gpt-4o-mini-transcribe and gpt-4o-mini-tts, GPT-4o image generation, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini and GPT-4.1 nano, Codex CLI, o3 and o4-mini, gpt-image-1 (API), GPT-4o sycophancy update and rollback, Codex (cloud agent) and codex-1, o3-pro and an 80% o3 price cut, Chain of Thought Monitorability: A New and Fragile Opportunity, ChatGPT agent, IMO 2025 gold-medal-level result (experimental reasoning model), gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b, GPT-5, gpt-realtime and Realtime API general availability, GPT-5-Codex, ICPC World Finals 2025 result (GPT-5 plus experimental model), ChatGPT Pulse, Instant Checkout and the Agentic Commerce Protocol, Sora 2 and the Sora app, Sora 2 copyright: opt-out to opt-in for rights holders, AgentKit: Agent Builder, ChatKit and Evals for agents, Apps in ChatGPT and the Apps SDK, ChatGPT Atlas, gpt-oss-safeguard-120b and 20b, Aardvark (agentic security researcher), GPT-5.1 (Instant and Thinking), GPT-5.1-Codex-Max, GPT-5.2, Disney investment and Sora character license, GPT Image 1.5 (new ChatGPT Images), GPT-5.2-Codex
2024 17: GPT Store, ChatGPT memory, Sora (technical preview), Model Spec (draft), GPT-4o, GPT-4o mini, SWE-bench Verified, Structured Outputs, o1-preview and o1-mini, Whisper large-v3-turbo, Realtime API (public beta), ChatGPT canvas, ChatGPT search, o1 and ChatGPT Pro, Sora (public launch), Deliberative Alignment, o3 (announcement)
2023 11: ChatGPT API (gpt-3.5-turbo) and Whisper API, GPT-4, ChatGPT plugins, browsing and code interpreter, Shap-E, Let's Verify Step by Step (PRM800K), Function calling in Chat Completions, ChatGPT Enterprise, DALL·E 3, ChatGPT voice and image input (GPT-4V), GPT-4 Turbo, GPTs and Assistants API (DevDay 2023), Weak-to-Strong Generalization

People moves

Of the moves the atlas tracks, 15 joined and 41 left, and 1 changed roles inside it.

David Robinson 2 October 2026
OpenAI to unknown
Safety Systems leader (safety transparency, system cards)
David Robinson 2 October 2026
OpenAI to unknown
Safety leader who led the writing of OpenAI's safety reports for major launches
Three unnamed OpenAI safety researchers 1 October 2026
OpenAI to unknown
Researchers on OpenAI's safety team
Tomek Korbak, Mikita Balesni, and Jasmine Wang 1 October 2026
OpenAI to unknown
Safety and alignment researchers
Barret Zoph 26 August 2026
OpenAI to Google DeepMind
VP of Research, OpenAI
Brad Lightcap 11 August 2026
OpenAI to New venture (unannounced)
Former COO (special projects since April)
Lilian Weng 29 July 2026
Thinking Machines Lab to OpenAI
Co-founder, Thinking Machines Lab
Fidji Simo 9 July 2026
OpenAI to unknown
CEO of Applications (OpenAI's No. 2)
Joshua Achiam July 2026
OpenAI to unknown
Chief futurist; former head of mission alignment
Johannes Heidecke July 2026
OpenAI to unknown
Head of Safety Systems, OpenAI
Noam Shazeer 17 June 2026
Google DeepMind to OpenAI
Gemini co-lead; Google VP of engineering
Bill Peebles 17 April 2026
OpenAI to unknown
Head of Sora
Kevin Weil 17 April 2026
OpenAI to AI science startup (reported)
VP, OpenAI for Science; former CPO
Caitlin Kalinowski 7 March 2026
OpenAI to unknown
Head of hardware and robotics, OpenAI
Peter Steinberger 15 February 2026
OpenClaw (independent) to OpenAI
Creator of OpenClaw (formerly Clawdbot/Moltbot)
Zoe Hitzig 11 February 2026
OpenAI to unknown
Researcher, OpenAI (two years)
Ryan Beiermeister 10 February 2026
OpenAI to unknown
Top safety executive, OpenAI
Luke Metz 14 January 2026
Thinking Machines Lab to OpenAI
Co-founder, Thinking Machines Lab
Barret Zoph 14 January 2026
Thinking Machines Lab to OpenAI
Co-founder and CTO, Thinking Machines Lab
Liam Fedus September 2025
OpenAI to Periodic Labs
VP of research and post-training, OpenAI
Ethan Knight 26 August 2025
Meta Superintelligence Labs to OpenAI
Researcher; joined Meta from xAI
Chaya Nayak 26 August 2025
Meta to OpenAI
Director of generative AI product management, Meta
Avi Verma 26 August 2025
Meta Superintelligence Labs to OpenAI
OpenAI researcher who joined Meta's lab
Hyung Won Chung July 2025
OpenAI to Meta Superintelligence Labs
OpenAI research scientist
Jason Wei July 2025
OpenAI to Meta Superintelligence Labs
OpenAI research scientist; o1 and deep research
Zhiqing Sun July 2025
OpenAI to Meta Superintelligence Labs
OpenAI research scientist
Hongyu Ren 30 June 2025
OpenAI to Meta Superintelligence Labs
OpenAI post-training group lead
Huiwen Chang 30 June 2025
OpenAI to Meta Superintelligence Labs
OpenAI researcher; GPT-4o image generation
Ji Lin 30 June 2025
OpenAI to Meta Superintelligence Labs
OpenAI researcher; o3/o4-mini and Operator reasoning stack
Jiahui Yu 30 June 2025
OpenAI to Meta Superintelligence Labs
OpenAI perception lead; former Gemini multimodal co-lead
Shuchao Bi 30 June 2025
OpenAI to Meta Superintelligence Labs
OpenAI multimodal post-training lead
Shengjia Zhao 30 June 2025
OpenAI to Meta Superintelligence Labs
OpenAI researcher; ChatGPT, GPT-4, o-series contributor
Trapit Bansal 26 June 2025
OpenAI to Meta Superintelligence Labs
OpenAI researcher; early RL-on-chain-of-thought work
Lucas Beyer 25 June 2025
OpenAI to Meta Superintelligence Labs
OpenAI Zurich researcher; multimodality
Alexander Kolesnikov 25 June 2025
OpenAI to Meta Superintelligence Labs
OpenAI Zurich researcher; multimodality
Xiaohua Zhai 25 June 2025
OpenAI to Meta Superintelligence Labs
OpenAI Zurich researcher; multimodality
Jony Ive 21 May 2025
io to OpenAI
Former Apple chief design officer; founder of io
Fidji Simo May 2025
Instacart to OpenAI
CEO of Instacart
Miles Brundage 23 October 2024
OpenAI to unknown
Senior Advisor for AGI Readiness, OpenAI
Mira Murati 25 September 2024
OpenAI to unknown
Chief Technology Officer
John Schulman 5 August 2024
OpenAI to Anthropic
OpenAI co-founder; head of post-training
Andrej Karpathy 16 July 2024
OpenAI to Eureka Labs
Founder, Eureka Labs
Ilya Sutskever 19 June 2024
OpenAI to Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI)
Co-founder and Chief Scientist, SSI
Jan Leike 28 May 2024
OpenAI to Anthropic
Co-lead of OpenAI Superalignment
Ilya Sutskever 14 May 2024
OpenAI to unknown
Co-founder and Chief Scientist
Transformer paper authors (Vaswani, Shazeer, Parmar, Uszkoreit, Jones, Gomez, Kaiser, Polosukhin) 20 March 2024
Google to Adept/Essential AI, Character.AI, Inceptive, Sakana AI, Cohere, OpenAI, Near
Authors of 'Attention Is All You Need' (Google, 2017)
Andrej Karpathy 13 February 2024
OpenAI to unknown
Research scientist, OpenAI
Sam Altman 21 November 2023
Microsoft (offered) to OpenAI
CEO, OpenAI
Sam Altman 17 November 2023
OpenAI to Microsoft (offered, not taken)
CEO, OpenAI
Greg Brockman 17 November 2023
OpenAI to Microsoft (announced), then OpenAI
President, OpenAI
Andrej Karpathy February 2023
Tesla (sabbatical) to OpenAI
Former Tesla Director of AI
Dario Amodei 28 May 2021
OpenAI to Anthropic
VP of Research, OpenAI
Daniela Amodei 28 May 2021
OpenAI to Anthropic
VP of Safety and Policy, OpenAI
Elon Musk 21 February 2018
OpenAI to unknown
OpenAI co-founder and board member
Andrej Karpathy 20 June 2017
OpenAI to Tesla
Research scientist, OpenAI
Greg Brockman December 2015
Stripe to OpenAI
CTO, Stripe
Ilya Sutskever December 2015
Google Brain to OpenAI
Research assistant, Google (via DNNresearch acquisition)

Sources

This profile was checked against its sources on 6 October 2026. How we check