Fidji Simo is stepping down from leading AGI work at OpenAI due to illness

OpenAI’s Fidji Simo will leave her full-time role as head of the company’s AGI and shift to being a “part-time consultant.” She said on X.

The news follows Simo’s original announcement In April She will take a medical leave for a few weeks due to a neuro-immune condition, shortly after taking over as AGI president. (She was previously the company’s chief applications officer.) Around the same time, COO Brad Lightcap also resigned from his position to focus on “special projects,” and Kate Roche, OpenAI’s marketing director, resigned to focus on her health. Simo said at the time that Roche planned to return to a “narrower role” when her health allowed.

Simo’s announcement in April marked the beginning of months of announcements of C-suite changes. While Simo was on medical leave, OpenAI President Greg Brockman was handling product responsibility, including leading OpenAI’s superapp efforts, while CSO Jason Kwon, CFO Sarah Friar, and CRO Denise Dresser led the business side of things.

but After about a monthIn mid-May, things changed again, with a reorganization of the company: Brockman officially took charge of OpenAI’s product strategy and “scaling,” leading four different pillars: core product and platform; Important project industries; Consumer (i.e. health, commerce, personal finance); Core infrastructure, advertising, data science and growth. In a note, see it Edge in MayBrockman wrote that the reorganization will help the company prioritize its AI agent goals by combining its products to “invest in a single agent platform and integrate ChatGPT and Codex into one unified agent experience for everyone.”

“Three months ago, I had to go on medical leave after a severe exacerbation of a chronic disease I had lived with for seven years,” Simo wrote. On X. “During that time, it became clear that the road to recovery was going to be much longer and more complicated than I had anticipated — and that I needed to focus fully on it… It was an unsettling experience to spend my days helping to build a future while simultaneously dealing with a crippling disease for which there is not yet a cure.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote On X That he was “really sad about this” and grateful to Simo.