OpenAI’s incoming CEO of purposes, Fidji Simo, despatched her first be aware to employees on Monday, telling staff the instruments they’re growing “will unlock extra alternatives for extra folks than some other expertise in historical past.”
“If we get this proper, AI may give everybody extra energy than ever,” Simo wrote, putting a hyper-optimistic tone, in accordance with a replica of the memo considered by WIRED. “However I additionally notice these alternatives received’t magically seem on their very own.”
Simo at present 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 govt “in just a few weeks.” She’ll report on to CEO Sam Altman.
Simo’s main position might be to guide the startup’s enterprise and operational groups, in accordance with Altman’s announcement concerning the rent in Could. She’ll be accountable for translating OpenAI’s analysis into viable merchandise like ChatGPT, the API (which builders use to construct their very own instruments atop OpenAI’s expertise), and enterprise instruments—and securing high-profile enterprise partnerships.
Within the memo, Simo outlines her pondering on how AI will influence information, well being, artistic expression, financial freedom, time, and help. She promotes just a few widespread 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 help (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. “Customized teaching has clearly been a privilege reserved for just a few, however now with ChatGPT, it may be obtainable to many.”
The memo reads like a mission assertion, not only for the Functions division, however for OpenAI’s broader guess: that it will possibly 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 good equalizer that knocks down society’s limitations to information, earnings, and emotional readability—although whether or not it would really accomplish that 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, aware 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 “will be obtainable all through day-after-day, leverage their full understanding of all features of your life to assist help you, and produce your unconscious patterns to your consciousness.”
That concept goes hand-in-hand with the rumored {hardware} system OpenAI is creating with famed designer Jony Ive, which The Wall Avenue 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 much like the film Her, the place a lonely man recent out of a failed marriage turns to a digital companion named Samantha. That, after all, has additionally gotten Altman into scorching water, since critics be aware that the movie is extra of a cautionary story than a enterprise alternative.
The memo was very on model for an OpenAI govt: optimistic and based mostly largely on future guarantees. Whereas Altman, Simo’s boss, works to coordinate among the extra futuristic concepts, like Stargate and artificial general intelligence, Simo will work to pair the startup’s sophisticated analysis into actual instruments for customers.
“If AI will help folks actually perceive themselves, it might be one of many greatest items 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.
