In a strategic leadership move, OpenAI has appointed Instacart CEO Fidji Simo as CEO of Applications. Simo will report directly to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who announced the change via X (formerly Twitter).
With Simo stepping into this newly created role, Altman will shift his focus more deeply toward OpenAI’s core priorities: research, compute, and safety—areas he described as "critical as we approach superintelligence."
Simo, a former Meta executive known for scaling Facebook’s app and her leadership at Instacart, brings deep experience in consumer technology and platform expansion. Altman praised her commitment and ability to help the company scale "10x or even 100x."
This change reflects OpenAI’s broader push to strengthen its leadership bench as it accelerates product rollouts and prepares for increasingly powerful AI models.