Kevin Weil, of OpenAI former chief product officer who was recently tapped to build a new AI workplace for scientists, Prism, is leaving the company, WIRED has confirmed. Weil was originally an early executive leading product on Instagram.
“Today is my last day at OpenAI, as OpenAI for Science is being put into other research teams,” Weil said on social media. post on Friday, shortly after WIRED reported his departure. “It’s been a mind-blowing two years, from Chief Product Officer to joining the research team and founding OpenAI for Science.”
Weil did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WIRED.
OpenAI It is also a sunset Prism, which the company was launched as a web app in January to give scientists a better way to work with AI. The company is assembling a team of about 10 people behind it under Codex’s head of OpenAI, Thibault Sottiaux, and aims to integrate Prism’s capabilities into its Codex desktop software. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the change and tells WIRED it’s part of the company’s efforts to align its business strategy and product. OpenAI has broad ambitions to transform Codex, its AI coding software, into “everything software.”
Weil, who joined OpenAI in June 2024, announced last September that he would start a new initiative within the company called OpenAI for Science. Now, OpenAI is dispersing those employees across the company’s product, research and infrastructure teams. An OpenAI spokesperson emphasized the company’s mission to accelerate scientific discovery and said it is one of the clearest ways AI can benefit humanity. Earlier on Friday, the company announced a new series of AI prototypes—GPT—Rosalind—built to help life science researchers work faster.
OpenAI is trying to refocus the company around a few key areas, such as business offerings and coding, as the company faces increasing pressure from opponents like Anthropic and is preparing to file for an IPO later this year. In March, OpenAI’s AGI Distribution Executive Director, Fiji Simo, he told the employees that the company needs to simplify the delivery of its products. The push to direct resources to more efficient efforts led OpenAI to suspend its work Sora video maker.
Unrelated to Weil’s news, two other executives announced Friday that they are leaving OpenAI. OpenAI’s chief technology officer for business applications, Srinivas Narayanan, announced internally that he is leaving the company to spend time with his family. Narayanan had joined OpenAI as the company’s VP of Engineering. By Bill Peebles, head of Sora, has been published on X that he was made in OpenAI as well.
Weil, Peebles, and Narayanan’s findings are the latest in a series of shakeups of leadership at OpenAI. The company recently announced a a major reorganization of its executive team while Simo takes medical leave to focus on his health. In the same announcement, OpenAI said co-founder and president Greg Brockman will oversee the company’s products for a short period of time, and the company’s chief marketing officer, Kate Rouch, will be on leave due to medical issues. Chief operating officer Brad Lightcap shifted to a “special projects” role as part of the restructuring as well.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman seemed to acknowledge the various upheavals of late blog post. “I’m also very aware that OpenAI is now a major platform, not a bad start, and we need to work in a more predictable way now,” he wrote. “It’s been a very intense, chaotic, high-pressure few years.”
