OpenAI’s New CEO of Purposes Strikes Hyper-Optimistic Tone in First Memo to Workers
OpenAI’s incoming CEO of functions, Fidji Simo, despatched her first observe to employees on Monday, telling staff the instruments they’re growing “will unlock extra alternatives for extra folks than some other know-how in historical past.”
“If we get this proper, AI can provide everybody extra energy than ever,” Simo wrote, hanging a hyper-optimistic tone, based on a duplicate of the memo considered by WIRED. “However I additionally understand these alternatives received’t magically seem on their very own.”
Simo at the moment works because the CEO of Instacart. Beforehand, she spent a decade at Meta, the place she went from being a product supervisor on the corporate’s information feed to the top of product for the Fb app. For the previous 12 months, Simo has been a member of OpenAI’s board of administrators. In her memo, Simo stated she’ll be beginning her position as an OpenAI government “in a couple of weeks.” She’ll report on to CEO Sam Altman.
Simo’s main position might be to guide the startup’s enterprise and operational groups, based on Altman’s announcement concerning the rent in Could. She’ll be answerable for translating OpenAI’s analysis into viable merchandise like ChatGPT, the API (which builders use to construct their very own instruments atop OpenAI’s know-how), and enterprise instruments—and securing high-profile enterprise partnerships.
Within the memo, Simo outlines her considering on how AI will influence data, well being, artistic expression, financial freedom, time, and assist. She promotes a couple of frequent concepts that paint a rosy image of AI: personalised AI tutors, higher well being knowledge, extra alternatives for artistic expression, effectivity beneficial properties from automation, and AI-powered emotional assist (a hotly debated subject).
“My enterprise coach Katia has been transformative to my profession, and I’ve joked together with her over time that everybody wants a ‘Katia of their pocket,’” Simo wrote. “Personalised teaching has clearly been a privilege reserved for a couple of, however now with ChatGPT, it may be accessible to many.”
The memo reads like a mission assertion, not only for the Purposes division, however for OpenAI’s broader guess: that it may well construct instruments that really feel as private and indispensable as a search engine or a smartphone. Within the memo, Simo positions OpenAI’s merchandise as the nice equalizer that knocks down society’s boundaries to data, revenue, and emotional readability—although whether or not it’s going to really achieve this stays to be seen.
“AI can compress hundreds of hours of studying into personalised insights delivered in plain language, on the tempo that fits us, conscious of our particular degree of understanding,” Simo writes. “It doesn’t simply reply questions—it teaches us to ask higher ones. And it helps us develop confidence in areas that after felt opaque or intimidating, rising each personally and professionally.”
The memo additionally hints at OpenAI’s imaginative and prescient for emotional companions. Within the closing part, Simo writes that AI coaches “might be accessible all through on daily basis, leverage their full understanding of all points of your life to assist assist you, and convey your unconscious patterns to your consciousness.”
That concept goes hand-in-hand with the rumored {hardware} machine OpenAI is creating with famed designer Jony Ive, which The Wall Road Journal reported might be “absolutely conscious of a person’s environment and life.” Altman hasn’t shied away from flat-out saying the corporate hopes to construct an AI just like the film Her, the place a lonely man contemporary out of a failed marriage turns to a digital companion named Samantha. That, in fact, has additionally gotten Altman into scorching water, since critics observe that the movie is extra of a cautionary story than a enterprise alternative.
The memo was very on model for an OpenAI government: optimistic and primarily based largely on future guarantees. Whereas Altman, Simo’s boss, works to coordinate a number of the extra futuristic concepts, like Stargate and synthetic basic intelligence, Simo will work to pair the startup’s sophisticated analysis into actual instruments for shoppers.
“If AI will help folks actually perceive themselves, it might be one of many greatest presents we may ever obtain,” Simo writes.
Replace: 7/21/2025 2:45 PM EDT: Wired has clarified that Fidji Simo remains to be Instacart’s CEO, and can formally be a part of OpenAI subsequent month.