Ex-OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will lead new AI research team at Microsoft

OpenAI’s co-founder and former CEO Sam Altman will join Microsoft. He will lead a new team researching AI together with Greg Brockman, another OpenAI co-founder. Altman was fired from OpenAI on Friday.

Microsofts CEO Satya Nadella says that Altman and Brockman will ‘together with colleagues’ lead a ‘new team researching advanced AI’. He does not provide any further details about this team, other than that he wants to quickly provide the team with resources. Nadella emphasizes that Microsoft remains committed to working with OpenAI, a company in which Microsoft has invested billions.

OpenAI’s board of directors fired Altman on Friday, alleging Altman had not been consistently forthcoming in his communications with the board. Brockman subsequently resigned. Investors, including Microsoft, reportedly then tried to pressure the board of directors to rehire Altman. Those talks apparently came to nothing, after which ex-Twitch CEO Emmett Shear was appointed as the new interim CEO of OpenAI. OpenAI is known for generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Dall-E and Whisper.