OpenAI

OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence (AI) research organization headquartered in San Francisco, consisting of a for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC) partially controlled by a nonprofit foundation. OpenAI was founded in 2015 in Delaware as a nonprofit. OpenAI developed the generative pre-trained transformer (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. Its release of ChatGPT in November 2022 has been credited with catalyzing the AI boom, and widespread interest in generative AI.

As of Apr 30, 2026, the latest employee count at OpenAI is 8821. OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar confirmed the $20B 2025 figure alongside $6B in 2024 and $2B in 2023, reflecting roughly 10x growth from 2023 to 2025. The latest valuation of OpenAI is $852B as of Apr 18, 2026. Microsoft previously invested over $13 billion into OpenAI, and provides Azure cloud computing resources.

Recent Leadership Changes

OpenAI made significant changes to its leadership structure, with COO Brad Lightcap moving into a new position focused on special projects under the direct supervision of CEO Sam Altman. Three OpenAI executives announced their departures from the company in April 2026: Bill Peebles, who led OpenAI's defunct short-form video app Sora; Kevin Weil, the vice president of OpenAI for Science; and Srinivas Narayanan, CTO of B2B Applications.