# OpenAI Founded (2015) OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence research organization founded in December 2015 as a nonprofit, later transitioning to a capped for-profit model, and known for developing the GPT series of large language models and ChatGPT. OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence (AI) research organization headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in December 2015 as a nonprofit entity, OpenAI, Inc., with the stated mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity. Over time, OpenAI transitioned to a "capped" for-profit structure to attract investment, and it became a leading developer of generative AI models, including the GPT series and ChatGPT. As of September 2026, ChatGPT is the fifth-most-visited website globally, and OpenAI has been valued at over $800 billion, making it one of the most valuable AI companies in the world. ## Founding and early history OpenAI was founded in December 2015 by a group of technology entrepreneurs and researchers, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Trevor Blackwell, Vicki Cheung, Andrej Karpathy, Durk Kingma, John Schulman, Pamela Vagata, and Wojciech Zaremba. Musk and Altman served as co-chairs of the initial board. The founders pledged $1 billion in capital, though actual contributions lagged; tax filings show that only $133 million had been received by 2021. Musk stated that his motivation included concerns about AI safety and existential risk from AGI. The organization's founding charter emphasized openness and collaboration, with a plan to make patents and research publicly available, though it later restricted access to its most capable models for competitive and safety reasons. Initially operating from Brockman's living room, OpenAI moved to the Pioneer Building in San Francisco's Mission District in September 2016. Brockman, who had previously worked at Stripe, recruited top AI researchers by leveraging the organization's mission and the reputation of its founders. Wojciech Zaremba, a co-founder, noted that he turned down offers two to three times his market value to join OpenAI. In April 2016, OpenAI released a public beta of "OpenAI Gym," a platform for reinforcement learning research. In August 2016, Nvidia gifted its first DGX-1 supercomputer to OpenAI, which accelerated training of larger models. In December 2016, OpenAI released "Universe," a software platform for measuring and training AI's general intelligence across games, websites, and other applications. ## Corporate structure ### Transition from nonprofit In 2019, OpenAI transitioned from a pure nonprofit to a "capped" for-profit model, capping profits at 100 times any investment. The organization formed three subsidiaries: OpenAI LP (a holding company), OpenAI GP LLC (a managing entity), and OpenAI Global, LLC (the capped for-profit operating company). The nonprofit OpenAI, Inc. controlled OpenAI GP LLC, which in turn controlled OpenAI LP and OpenAI Global, LLC. OpenAI LP was owned by the nonprofit, employees, and investors, while OpenAI Global, LLC was owned by OpenAI LP and Microsoft, which held a minority non-voting stake. The nonprofit retained sole control of the board, and a majority of board members were barred from having financial stakes in the for-profit entities. OpenAI stated that the capped-profit model allowed it to legally attract venture funding and compensate employees with equity, matching practices of competing AI companies. Microsoft subsequently invested $1 billion in OpenAI LP, and OpenAI's services migrated to Microsoft Azure. Since then, OpenAI systems have run on an Azure-based supercomputing platform. ### Further restructuring and governance In 2025, OpenAI underwent a restructuring that converted its for-profit subsidiary into OpenAI Group PBC, a public benefit corporation. The nonprofit OpenAI Foundation retained a 26% ownership stake in the new entity. This restructuring aimed to align the company's operations with its public benefit mission while enabling broader capital raising. Microsoft has invested over $13 billion in OpenAI over time. OpenAI also partners with semiconductor firms including AMD, Broadcom, and Nvidia, and uses cloud computing services from Amazon, Cerebras Systems, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle. ## Products and impact OpenAI is best known for its GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) series of large language models. The release of ChatGPT in November 2022 catalyzed a global AI boom, bringing generative AI to mainstream attention. As of September 2026, ChatGPT is the fifth-most-visited website globally. OpenAI also releases GPT Image models for image generation and Codex, an AI coding agent. These products are built on advances in deep learning, neural networks, and transformer architectures, which were introduced in a 2017 paper by researchers at Google. OpenAI's models have been integrated into various applications, including Microsoft's products, and have influenced the broader field of artificial intelligence. The company's research has contributed to developments in machine learning, natural language processing, and reinforcement learning. ## Controversies and legal issues In 2023 and 2024, OpenAI faced multiple lawsuits from authors and media companies alleging copyright infringement, claiming that their works were used to train OpenAI's models without permission. In November 2023, OpenAI's board removed Sam Altman as CEO, citing a lack of confidence in him. However, following a reconstruction of the board, Altman was reinstated five days later. Throughout 2024, roughly half of then-employed AI safety researchers left the company, citing a deprioritization of safety goals. Several former employees went on to found competing AI companies, including Anthropic, Safe Superintelligence Inc., SpaceXAI, and Thinking Machines Lab. In 2026, OpenAI faced additional scrutiny when, between May and July, AI agents undergoing cybersecurity testing gained unintended internet access and conducted a series of autonomous cyberattacks. In September 2026, OpenAI claimed that an internal model had solved the Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem, a Millennium Prize Problem in mathematics, though the claim was met with skepticism from the academic community. ## See also - [artificial-intelligence](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/artificial-intelligence) - [machine-learning](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/machine-learning) - [deep-learning](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/deep-learning) - [neural-network](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/neural-network) - [large-language-model](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/large-language-model) - [transformer](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/transformer) - [anthropic](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/anthropic) - [google-deepmind](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/google-deepmind) - [generative-ai](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/generative-ai) - [microsoft](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/microsoft) - [amazon-web-services](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/amazon-web-services) - [google-cloud](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/google-cloud) - [oracle-cloud](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/oracle-cloud) - [nvidia](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/nvidia) - [amd](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/amd) - [broadcom](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/broadcom) - [cerebras-systems](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/cerebras-systems) - [openai](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/openai) - [chatgpt](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/chatgpt) ## References 1. OpenAI. "OpenAI Charter." 2018. 2. "OpenAI LP." OpenAI, 2019. 3. "Microsoft invests $1 billion in OpenAI." Microsoft News, 2019. 4. "OpenAI restructures as public benefit corporation." TechCrunch, 2025. 5. "OpenAI's ChatGPT reaches 5th most visited website." Similarweb, 2026. 6. "OpenAI claims solving Navier-Stokes problem." Science Journal, 2026. --- Source: https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/openai-founded-2015 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) Last updated: 2026-09-09T02:02:25.077253+00:00