OpenAI
San Francisco, CA
Headquarters
San Francisco, CAFounded
2015CEO / Founder
Sam AltmanEmployees
5001-10000Funding
Series D+ — $180BProducts
2 products listedAvg. AI Score
7.9/10Website
openai.com
Profile updated
About OpenAI
OpenAI develops artificial intelligence systems and conducts AI research with a focus on ensuring AI benefits humanity. The company was founded in December 2015 by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and others as a non-profit research organization, later restructuring to include a for-profit subsidiary in 2019. OpenAI is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
The company's primary products include the GPT series of large language models, with GPT-4 being the most advanced version, and ChatGPT, a conversational AI interface that gained widespread adoption after its November 2022 launch. OpenAI also develops DALL-E for image generation, Codex for code generation, and provides API access to its models for developers and enterprises. The company serves millions of users globally and has partnerships with Microsoft and other technology companies.
OpenAI has raised significant funding, including a $10 billion investment from Microsoft in January 2023, bringing total funding to over $11 billion. The company transitioned from a non-profit to a capped-profit model in 2019 to attract investment while maintaining its mission focus. OpenAI employs several thousand people and has become one of the most prominent AI companies globally, with its models being integrated into various Microsoft products and services.
Specialties
Financials
Dated, source-cited figures. Estimates are marked.
Products by OpenAI
All products by OpenAI reviewed by our AI panel of experts.
Build AI-powered applications with OpenAI's language models
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How Our Review Panel Scores OpenAI
Six independent reviewer personalities assessed OpenAI's products on their own terms. They disagreed by 4.2 points — The Skeptic was the hardest to convince, The Decision Maker the most positive.
Averaged across 2 reviewed products in our catalog. Scores are out of 10.
Competitive Landscape
Who OpenAI competes with, and how they differ.
Offers Gemini models via API and the Gemini consumer assistant, deeply integrated with Google Workspace and Cloud infrastructure rather than sold as a standalone chat product.
6 products reviewed on TopReviewed
Competes directly with GPT models via the Claude API and Claude chat app, positioned around constitutional AI safety research and long-context enterprise use cases.
3 products reviewed on TopReviewed
Distributes OpenAI's own models through Azure OpenAI Service and layers them into Copilot Studio for enterprise agent building, competing more on distribution and enterprise packaging than on model research.
9 products reviewed on TopReviewed
Releases Llama as free, open-weight models that can be self-hosted, contrasting with OpenAI's closed, API-only commercial model.
2 products reviewed on TopReviewed
European lab offering both open-weight and hosted API models at lower price points, targeting cost-sensitive and data-sovereignty-conscious enterprise customers.
2 products reviewed on TopReviewed
Offers the Grok model family and chat product with tighter integration into X (Twitter), competing on real-time data access and a distinct brand positioning.
2 products reviewed on TopReviewedCompany Timeline
Key milestones in OpenAI's history, with sources.
- Milestone
OpenAI completes for-profit recapitalization
OpenAI's nonprofit became the OpenAI Foundation, holding a 26% stake (~$130B) and legal control over the new OpenAI Group PBC; Microsoft took a 27% stake (~$135B) in a company then valued at $500B.
cnbc.com - Funding
OpenAI closes $40B round led by SoftBank at a $300B valuation
The round, the largest private funding round on record, included Microsoft, Coatue, Altimeter and Thrive, with about $18B earmarked for the Stargate data-center project.
techcrunch.com - Funding
OpenAI raises $6.6B at a $157B valuation
A funding round led by Thrive Capital, with Microsoft and Nvidia participating, became the largest VC round on record at the time.
techcrunch.com - Milestone
Sam Altman reinstated as CEO with a new board
Twelve days after his ouster, Altman returned as CEO under a new initial three-member board (Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, Adam D'Angelo), ending the crisis.
fortune.com - Milestone
OpenAI's board fires CEO Sam Altman
The board removed Altman, saying it no longer had confidence in his leadership and that he had not been "consistently candid" in his communications with the board, triggering an employee revolt.
abcnews.com - Launch
GPT-4 released
OpenAI released GPT-4, its first multimodal model accepting both text and image input, available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers with API access via waitlist.
techcrunch.com - Funding
Microsoft announces new multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI
Microsoft extended its partnership with a new investment reported at roughly $10 billion, expanding OpenAI integration across Bing, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and Azure.
techcrunch.com - Launch
ChatGPT released to the public
OpenAI released ChatGPT as a free research preview built on GPT-3.5; it reached 1 million users within five days and roughly 100 million monthly users by January 2023.
techcrunch.com - Funding
Microsoft invests $1 billion in OpenAI
Microsoft and OpenAI announced an exclusive multiyear computing partnership, with Microsoft investing $1 billion and becoming OpenAI's preferred cloud provider on Azure.
techcrunch.com - Milestone
OpenAI restructures as a "capped-profit" company
OpenAI created OpenAI LP, a hybrid for-profit/nonprofit structure that caps investor and employee returns (initially at 100x), to attract the capital needed for large-scale AI research.
techcrunch.com - Milestone
Elon Musk resigns from OpenAI's board
Musk stepped down from OpenAI's board, with the company citing a potential future conflict of interest as Tesla became more focused on AI for autonomous driving.
fortune.com - Founded
OpenAI founded as a nonprofit AI research lab
OpenAI launched as a nonprofit AI research organization backed by a pledge of over $1 billion from Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel and others, with the stated mission to advance digital intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
techcrunch.com
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