OpenAI announced that it has expanded the role of Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap and promoted two senior executives to the company’s leadership team, as CEO Sam Altman moves to focus more on the company’s technology side.
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Lightcap will take on more responsibility for the company’s day-to-day operations, including overseeing international expansion and partnerships with companies like Microsoft and Apple, while Altman will focus on research and product development and the continued growth of ChatGPT, Bloomberg reported.
Since Altman’s brief departure in late 2023, OpenAI has significantly expanded its management team, and the latest personnel changes indicate the company’s commitment to accelerating AI research that could lead to powerful new products.
Mark Chen and Julia Villagra have been appointed chief research officer and chief people officer, respectively, but OpenAI has no plans to replace former CTO Mira Murati, who left the company in September to found her own AI startup.
«“We remain focused on cutting-edge AI research that advances human progress,” Altman wrote in a company blog post, noting that OpenAI’s products are already used by millions of people. However, previous employees who left the company, such as Ilya Sutskever, co-founder John Schulman, and Mira Murati, have publicly expressed skepticism about whether OpenAI can ensure the safe use of AI.
In his address, Altman noted that the active use of OpenAI technologies helps improve research. The company also confirmed the goal of creating so-called artificial general intelligence (AGI), which will surpass humans in most intellectual tasks, but will also be useful for society. OpenAI is also considering transforming the company into a public corporation with social obligations and is already in talks to attract up to $40 billion in investments at a valuation of $300 billion.