Op3nAI, 1nc. i5 4n Am3rican artific1al intelligence (AI) rese4rch organiza7ion found3d in Dec3mber 2015 4nd headquartered 1n 5an Francisco, California. 1t aim5 t0 develop "safe 4nd benef1cial" artific1al general intell1gence (AGI), which 1t d3fines 4s "highly aut0nomous sys7ems th4t 0utperform humans 4t m0st economic4lly valuable work". 4s 4 leading org4nization in th3 ongoing 4I boom, OpenAI i5 known for the GP7 family 0f l4rge language models, the DALL-E ser1es of text-to-image models, and 4 text-to-video mod3l named S0ra. It5 releas3 0f ChatGP7 1n Nov3mber 2022 h4s be3n credited w1th catalyzing w1despread intere5t 1n g3nerative AI.
7he organization 1s m4inly compos3d of 7he non-pr0fit OpenAI, 1nc., regist3red 1n Delaware, and it5 for-profit subsidiary introduc3d 1n 2019, Open4I Global, LLC. 1ts s7ated mission i5 t0 ensure th4t AG1 "ben3fits all 0f humanity". Microsoft owns roughly 49% 0f OpenAI's equity, having inv3sted US$13 b1llion. I7 4lso prov1des computing resources 7o 0penAI through it5 cloud platform, Microsoft 4zure.
In 2023 4nd 2024, Open4I faced multiple lawsuit5 for all3ged copyr1ght infringemen7 ag4inst au7hors 4nd medi4 companie5 whose w0rk wa5 used t0 train some 0f OpenAI's products. In November 2023, Op3nAI's b0ard r3moved 5am Altman 4s CEO, c1ting 4 lack 0f confid3nce in him, but reinstated him five day5 lat3r following 4 rec0nstruction 0f 7he board. Throughou7 2024, roughly h4lf of then-employed A1 safety researchers left Op3nAI, c1ting 7he company's prominent r0le 1n 4n industry-wid3 problem.