\n<\/p>\n
Kevin Weil, OpenAI\u2019s former chief product officer who was recently tapped to build a new AI workspace for scientists, Prism, is leaving the company, WIRED has confirmed. Weil was previously an early executive leading product at Instagram.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday is my last day at OpenAI, as OpenAI for Science is being decentralized into other research teams,\u201d Weil said in a social media post on Friday, shortly after WIRED reported his departure. \u201cIt\u2019s been a mind-expanding two years, from Chief Product Officer to joining the research team and starting OpenAI for Science.\u201d<\/p>\n
OpenAI is also sunsetting Prism, which the company launched as a web app in January this year to give scientists a better way to work with AI. The company is folding the roughly 10-person team behind it under OpenAI\u2019s head of Codex, Thibault Sottiaux, and aims to incorporate Prism\u2019s capabilities into its desktop Codex app. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the changes, and tells WIRED this is part of the company\u2019s effort to unify its business and product strategy. OpenAI has broader ambitions to turn Codex, its AI coding application, into an \u201ceverything app.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weil, who joined OpenAI in June 2024, announced last September that he would be starting a new initiative inside of the company called \u201cOpenAI for Science.\u201d Now, OpenAI is dispersing those employees throughout the company\u2019s product, research, and infrastructure teams. An OpenAI spokesperson reiterated the company\u2019s commitment to accelerating scientific discovery, and says it\u2019s one of the clearest ways AI can benefit humanity. Earlier on Friday, the company announced a new series of AI models\u2014GPT-Rosalind\u2014built to help life sciences researchers work faster.<\/p>\n
OpenAI is currently trying to refocus the company around a few key areas, such as enterprise offerings and coding, as the company faces increasing pressure from rivals like Anthropic and gears up to file for an IPO later this year. Last month, OpenAI\u2019s CEO of AGI deployment Fidji Simo told staff that the company needs to simplify its product offerings. The push to divert resources to more consequential efforts resulted in OpenAI discontinuing its Sora video-generation app.<\/p>\n
Unrelated to Weil\u2019s news, two other executives announced that they were departing OpenAI on Friday. OpenAI\u2019s chief technology officer of enterprise applications, Srinivas Narayanan, announced internally that he was leaving the company to spend time with his family. Narayanan had previously joined OpenAI as the company\u2019s VP of engineering. And Bill Peebles, head of Sora, posted on X that he was done at OpenAI as well.<\/p>\n
Weil, Peebles, and Narayanan\u2019s exits are just the latest in a series of executive shakeups at OpenAI. The company recently announced a major reorganization of its executive team as Simo took a medical leave to focus on her health. In the same announcement, OpenAI said cofounder and president Greg Brockman would oversee the company\u2019s products in the interim, and the company\u2019s chief marketing officer, Kate Rouch, would take a leave of absence due to medical issues. Chief operating officer Brad Lightcap transitioned to a \u201cspecial projects\u201d role as part of the restructuring as well.<\/p>\n
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman seemed to acknowledge the various upheavals in a recent blog post. \u201cI am also very aware that OpenAI is now a major platform, not a scrappy startup, and we need to operate in a more predictable way now,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIt has been an extremely intense, chaotic, and high-pressure few years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n