- OpenAI cofounder and president Greg Brockman has officially taken charge of the company’s product strategy, solidifying a role he held on an interim basis since April.
- Brockman outlined plans to merge ChatGPT and Codex into a single unified experience, consolidating the company’s consumer, developer, and API products under one team.
- The move follows Sam Altman’s late-2025 “code red” declaration and the shuttering of side projects including Sora and OpenAI for Science.
OpenAI told staff on Friday that cofounder and president Greg Brockman will now lead product strategy in addition to his work on AI infrastructure, WIRED’s Maxwell Zeff first reported. The change makes official what was already happening in practice: Brockman had been overseeing OpenAI’s products on an interim basis while Fidji Simo, the company’s CEO of AGI deployment, is out on medical leave.
In a staff memo, Brockman described plans to combine ChatGPT and its coding product Codex into a single experience. “We’re consolidating our product efforts to execute with maximum focus toward the agentic future, to win across both consumer and enterprise,” Brockman reportedly said. OpenAI confirmed to TechCrunch that Simo, who remains on medical leave, worked with Brockman on these changes, and noted that the company had already been discussing plans to combine ChatGPT, Codex, and its API into a single platform with one core product team.
The consolidation is the latest twist in a turbulent year for OpenAI’s leadership. Simo, who joined OpenAI from Instacart in 2025, announced her medical leave in early April, citing a neuroimmune condition called POTS. Brockman himself returned to the company in November 2024 after a months-long sabbatical, later testifying in the Musk v. Altman trial that Musk once called a ChatGPT predecessor “stupid.”
The product overhaul also reflects a narrowing of ambitions. At the end of last year, CEO Sam Altman declared a “code red” and pushed the company to refocus on its core ChatGPT experience, per The Decoder. OpenAI has since shuttered its video generator Sora and OpenAI for Science, labeling them “side quests” — even as it launched ChatGPT for personal finance just yesterday.
FAQ
What is changing at OpenAI?
ChatGPT, Codex, and the developer API are being merged into a single unified product experience under one core team, led by Greg Brockman.
Why is Fidji Simo on leave?
Simo announced medical leave in April 2026 to manage POTS, a neuroimmune condition that causes lightheadedness and fatigue. She worked with Brockman on the reorganization before stepping away.
What happened to Sora and OpenAI for Science?
Both were shelved as “side quests” after Altman’s code red directive to focus on the core ChatGPT experience and agentic AI capabilities.
[Editor’s note: This article was updated on May 16, 2026 to correct two date errors. The original text stated that Fidji Simo “joined from Instacart in 2021”; she joined OpenAI in 2025 (she joined Instacart in 2021). The original also stated that Brockman “returned to the company in January 2025”; he returned in November 2024. An incorrect internal cross-reference link for the Musk v. Altman trial was also corrected.]
