Microsoft hires Sam Altman & Greg Brockman to lead new advanced AI research team

Published , by Sam Chandler

Microsoft’s involvement in the future of artificial intelligence has become more solidified following some changes to leadership at OpenAI. After a series of events, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman will be joining Microsoft’s new AI research team while former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear will be the interim CEO of OpenAI.

Early Monday morning on November 20, 2023, Satya Nadella took to X, formerly Twitter, to announce that Microsoft will remain committed to OpenAI. The post confirms that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman will be joining Microsoft to “lead a new advanced AI research team” and Nadella states he looks forward to working with Emmett Shear and OpenAI's new leadership team. 

To get you up to speed, last Friday, the OpenAI board of directors ousted Sam Altman as CEO. Following this, Greg Brockman announced he would be leaving while Andrej Karpathy posted that the “board had a chance to explain their drastic actions” and yet the board of directors offered no insight. According to Bloomberg, the board had a 5:00 p.m. deadline to "give in to Altman's demands."

Jake Piazza and Hayden Field of CNBC have been tracking the events of OpenAI. On November 6, 2023, OpenAI announced its GPT-4 Turbo AI and Altman also said the company would pay the cost of legal actions of users who face copyright infringement. A little over a week later, OpenAI made a post announcing the leadership transition.

Be sure to check out the Shacknews OpenAI page for our ongoing coverage of the company and its products.