Fidji Simo takes helm of OpenAI’s consumer business as Altman pivots to infrastructure and research

Fidji Simo, the former Instacart CEO and longtime Facebook executive, has completed her first week at OpenAI, where she is expected to manage most of the company’s 3,000 employees and steer its consumer-facing strategy, reports the Verge. Her appointment signals a decisive shift inside the artificial intelligence firm: CEO Sam Altman appears increasingly focused on raising capital for massive compute infrastructure and nurturing side ventures, while delegating operational control of OpenAI’s “big consumer tech company” to Simo.

Simo brings credentials well-suited to OpenAI’s ambitions. She lived through Facebook’s hypergrowth, led Instacart to its IPO, and has deep ties in the advertising sector—experience likely to prove valuable as OpenAI moves toward ad-supported features in ChatGPT. Her official title, CEO of Applications, underscores the consumer scope of her role. Today, OpenAI’s application portfolio consists of ChatGPT, but expansion is imminent. A browser is reportedly in development, while early monetization experiments—such as affiliate links embedded in ChatGPT shopping results—could launch as soon as this fall.

Her leadership challenge will be formidable. The executives reporting into her include experienced leaders such as COO Brad Lightcap, CFO Sarah Friar, and CPO Kevin Weil, each with CEO-level experience of their own and close ties to Altman. She must also replace Chief People Officer Julia Villagra, who announced her departure only months into the role.

Altman, meanwhile, will remain directly involved with OpenAI’s compute and research initiatives and a consumer hardware partnership with Jony Ive. Outside the company, he is co-founding a brain-computer interface startup with Worldcoin CEO Alex Blania. In his own words: “I can’t run four companies.”

For now, Simo has introduced herself to staff and signaled optimism about OpenAI’s mission. But the pace of the company’s evolution suggests her strategic direction for consumer AI could surface sooner rather than later.