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Last night, Openai released a Blog post On the official website where CEO and co-founder Sam Altman announced the major new recruits: Fidji Simo, CEO and Chairman of grocery delivery company Instacart, will be joining Openai as CEO of the newly created executive position, Applications.
Shimo will take on a new role in Open I in the second half of 2025 after the transition period. She reports directly to Altman and leads the application division. This includes a team that translates OpenAI research into products used by consumers and businesses around the world.
Shimo also shared a message with the Instacart team. Her LinkedIn profile“This was a very difficult decision, because I love this company. At the same time, my passion for AI, especially with the possibility of having to cure illness, was a difficult opportunity to pass on.”
She further wrote: “It’s an incredible privilege and responsibility to join Openai at this critical moment. This organization has the potential to accelerate human potential at a pace we’ve never seen before, and I’m deeply committed to shaping these applications into public goods.”
While Altman made it clear that he would remain CEO of the entire ChatGPT company, the expanding organizational scope across AI research, product delivery, and infrastructure meant it was time to set up a new division with its own executive leaders.
Altman said he plans to increase his focus on research, calculations and safety systems. He reiterated that all functions remain integrated under a single OpenAI structure that includes non-commercial arms.
Simo will remain CEO of Instacart for the coming months and will help board her successor, who is expected to come from the company’s existing management team. She will continue to chair the Instacart board after resigning as CEO.
Openai’s evolving structure and AI stack
Altman highlighted the strategic importance of the new role, noting that Openai has evolved beyond its original identity as a lab.
Over the past two and a half years, the company has grown into a global product provider and, more recently, an infrastructure builder that delivers AI tools at scale.
“We are in a privileged position to scale them all at the same time and bringing exceptional leaders is an important part of doing it well,” writes Altman. His blog post.
He explained that Shimo is uniquely qualified to lead an application group, citing her leadership experience, operations expertise and collaboration with Openai’s mission.
In addition, in I prepared my testimony before today’s US CongressAltman also included a chart showing how Openai would display the “AI stack” that it offers its customers, and how the entire industry would be split into three core buckets or “layers.”
In his testimony, Altman also revealed more examples of what Openai thinks is part of the AI application layer. Among these, chatbots such as HIT ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot (partially installed by AI Models):
“Ultimately, both the infrastructure and platform layers support the application layer. These are devices and software applications that use AI to provide superior services to people. Both ChatGPT and 4 Microsoft’s Copilot are examples of AI applications. Drug Discovery is a nonprofit that changes the way they provide services.
To build a new AI economy, it is important to have all three layers work and spin the flywheel across the ecosystem. Building an infrastructure layer is essential so that people can develop and deploy models on the platform layer. It is essential that people use AI models to build applications on top of it. Additionally, it is essential for customers to adopt applications, allowing markets to grow and investments to further expand their infrastructure. The process repeats itself. This is how a new economy was born. ”
More Openai team members praised Simo on social media, primarily on X. Kate Luch wrote about newcomers: “She’s all a signal. No noise. The best integrity leader I know. Very good news: for all of us, for Openai.”
Caitlin Kalinowski is a member of Openai’s technical staff and leads the vision of hardware and robots. I posted partially on X“We were not fortunate to have her deep experience and warm leadership style. Welcome, Fidge!!!”
Shimo boasts an impressive track record focusing on turning technology into a viable business
Simo joined Openai’s board of directors in March 2024, bringing a wide range of leadership experience in technology, consumer platforms and healthcare innovation.
At Instacart, she oversaw the company’s public debut and a series of business milestones, including expanding its advertising business and launching new products.
Before that, she spent 10 years on Facebook where she led the Core Facebook app, where she was responsible for key product areas such as video, marketplace, groups, and advertising.
She is also co-founder of the Metrodora Institute, a clinic and research center focused on neuroimmune disorders, and is chairman of the Metrodora Foundation. In addition to Openai’s board sheets, Simo sits on Shopify and previously Cirque du Soleil’s boards.
With this leadership appointment, Openai has a deep focus on expanding its AI delivery towards consumers and businesses. By establishing the role of a dedicated CEO in the application division, the company aims to coordinate its broader mission of developing AI that benefits the public while building stronger operational infrastructure.
Impact on enterprise technical decision makers
For enterprise stakeholders built on Openai’s model, this leadership move could indicate a significant change in the way Openai develops, packages, and delivers software interfaces and tools. Creating dedicated application departments reflects the deeper commitment to operational scale and reliability that large organizations increasingly demand from AI vendors. As companies mature from research-centric entities to business infrastructure and application providers, users will be able to see improvements in product stability, integration support and roadmap clarity.
The appointment of Shimo may also suggest a promotion of wider commercialization within Openai. Her background on Facebook and Instacart highlights her focus on monetizing complex platforms and transforming experimental techniques into widely adopted consumer and enterprise solutions. Enterprise leaders monitoring queues for Openai’s future directions may reasonably expect greater support for verticalized products, developer tools, and enterprise-grade deployments.
More broadly, this move acknowledges the changes that are taking place across the AI industry. Successful adoption will become increasingly dependent not only on the quality of the model and the novelty of the research, but also on how well these systems are integrated into the operational realities of the company. As Openai grows its executive benches to reflect its needs, it is more closely aligned with the enterprise audience it currently serves, an audience that values not only performance and innovation, but also reliability, control and product maturity.
