Kevin Weil, OpenAI’s former chief product officer who was recently tapped to build a new AI workspace for scientists, Prism, is leaving the company, WIRED has confirmed. Weil was previously an early executive leading product at Instagram.
“Today is my last day at OpenAI, as OpenAI for Science is being decentralized into other research teams,” Weil said in a social media post on Friday, shortly after WIRED reported his departure. “It’s been a mind-expanding two years, from Chief Product Officer to joining the research team and starting OpenAI for Science.”
OpenAI is also sunsetting Prism, which the company launched as a web app in January this year to give scientists a better way to work with AI. The company is folding the roughly 10-person team behind it under OpenAI’s head of Codex, Thibault Sottiaux, and aims to incorporate Prism’s capabilities into its desktop Codex app. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the changes, and tells WIRED this is part of the company’s effort to unify its business and product strategy. OpenAI has broader ambitions to turn Codex, its AI coding application, into an “everything app.”
Weil, who joined OpenAI in June 2024, announced last September that he would be starting a new initiative inside of the company called “OpenAI for Science.” Now, OpenAI is dispersing those employees throughout the company’s product, research, and infrastructure teams. An OpenAI spokesperson reiterated the company’s commitment to accelerating scientific discovery, and says it’s one of the clearest ways AI can benefit humanity. Earlier on Friday, the company announced a new series of AI models— GPT-Rosalind—built to help life sciences researchers work faster.
OpenAI is currently trying to refocus the company around a few key areas, such as enterprise offerings and coding, as the company faces increasing pressure from rivals like Anthropic and gears up to file for an IPO later this year. Last month, OpenAI’s CEO of AGI deployment Fidji Simo told staff that the company needs to simplify its product offerings. The push to divert resources to more consequential efforts resulted in OpenAI discontinuing its Sora video-generation app.
Unrelated to Weil’s news, two other executives announced that they were departing OpenAI on Friday. OpenAI’s chief technology officer of enterprise applications, Srinivas Narayanan, announced internally that he was leaving the company to spend time with family. Narayanan had previously joined OpenAI as the company’s VP of engineering. And Bill Peebles, head of Sora, posted on X that he was done at OpenAI.
Weil, Peebles, and Narayanan’s exits are just the latest in a series of executive shakeups at OpenAI. The company recently announced a major reorganization of its executive team as Simo took a medical leave to focus on her health. In the same announcement, OpenAI said cofounder and president Greg Brockman would oversee the company’s products in the interim, and the company’s chief marketing officer, Kate Rouch, would take a leave of absence due to medical issues. Chief operating officer Brad Lightcap transitioned to a “special projects” role as part of the restructuring as well.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
