OpenAI develops and deploys frontier AI systems with the stated goal of ensuring that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. Founded in 2015 as a nonprofit, the organization has grown into one of the most influential AI labs in the world, pioneering large language models (the GPT series), image generation (DALL-E), video generation (Sora), and reasoning models (the o-series). OpenAI combines direct AI capabilities research with safety and alignment work, pursuing an empirical approach of deploying systems incrementally and learning from real-world use. As of early 2026, it operates as a Public Benefit Corporation subsidiary governed by the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation.
Funding Details
- Annual Budget
- $8,000,000,000
- Monthly Burn Rate
- $666,666,667
- Current Runway
- -
- Funding Goal
- -
- Funding Raised to Date
- $168,000,000,000
- Fiscal Sponsor
- -
Theory of Change
OpenAI's core theory of change is that if transformative AI and eventually AGI will be developed regardless, it is better for safety-conscious organizations to be at the frontier of that development rather than ceding ground to less safety-focused actors. By being at the frontier, OpenAI believes it can shape how AI systems are built, deployed, and governed — publishing safety research, establishing industry norms, and iteratively improving alignment techniques in tandem with capabilities. OpenAI pursues an empirical safety approach: deploying models incrementally to real users, measuring emergent risks and capabilities, and using those findings to inform both technical safety work and policy recommendations. On the alignment side, their approach involves scalable oversight (using AI systems to help supervise more capable AI systems), interpretability research, and reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), with the long-term goal of developing automated alignment researchers capable of solving the problem of supervising superintelligent systems.
Grants Received
from Open Philanthropy
Projects
No linked projects.
People
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Details
- Last Updated
- Apr 2, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC
- Created
- Mar 19, 2026, 10:30 PM UTC