OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research and product company based in San Francisco, California. Founded in December 2015, it became one of the most widely recognized names in technology after the November 2022 release of ChatGPT, a conversational assistant that reached an audience of hundreds of millions of users and brought generative AI into everyday use. The company builds large language models, image and video generation tools, and a developer platform that other businesses use to add AI features to their own software.
The organization operates with an unusual ownership design. A nonprofit foundation controls a for-profit operating arm, a structure intended to keep the mission of building broadly beneficial artificial general intelligence ahead of pure financial return. That arrangement has evolved over the years, and OpenAI now sits among the most valuable private companies in the world.
What OpenAI does
OpenAI develops and operates artificial intelligence systems and sells access to them through consumer apps and a developer API. Its core research focus is large language models, the technology that powers text generation, summarization, coding assistance, and conversational answers. The same underlying research feeds tools for generating images, audio, and video.
The company reaches users in two main ways. Consumers use ChatGPT directly through the web, mobile apps, and desktop apps, choosing from free and paid subscription tiers. Businesses and developers connect to OpenAI models through the API, paying based on usage and embedding the models inside their own applications, from customer support tools to writing assistants and internal search.
History
OpenAI was founded in 2015 by a group that included Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba, and John Schulman, among others. It launched as a nonprofit research lab with early funding pledges from its founders and supporters, and a stated goal of ensuring that advanced AI would benefit humanity broadly rather than a narrow set of interests. Elon Musk left the board in 2018.
To fund the rising cost of training large models, OpenAI created a capped-profit entity in 2019 and entered a multiyear partnership with Microsoft, which invested billions of dollars and provided cloud computing through Azure. The 2022 launch of ChatGPT, built on the GPT-3.5 series, drove rapid adoption and set off a wave of investment and competition across the technology industry. In 2025 the company restructured again, reorganizing its for-profit arm as a public benefit corporation while keeping it under the control of the nonprofit, now known as the OpenAI Foundation.
Products and ChatGPT
ChatGPT is OpenAI's flagship consumer product and the front door to most of its technology. It answers questions, drafts and edits text, writes and debugs code, analyzes documents, and connects to other tools. OpenAI offers free access alongside paid plans that unlock more capable models and higher usage limits. The underlying GPT models are also sold directly to developers through the API.
Beyond text, OpenAI builds a range of generative tools. DALL-E produces images from written prompts, the Sora model generates video, and Whisper handles speech recognition. The company has also released coding-focused and agent-style products that can carry out multi-step tasks. For readers comparing options, ChatGPT is covered alongside other platforms in our guide to the best AI tools for business.
Structure and funding
OpenAI's defining characteristic is its hybrid structure. The nonprofit OpenAI Foundation controls a for-profit operating company, an arrangement designed so that the organization's mission can guide decisions even as it raises large amounts of commercial capital. The for-profit arm was reorganized as a public benefit corporation in 2025, a form that lets a company weigh its stated mission alongside shareholder returns.
Funding has come from a mix of strategic and financial investors, with Microsoft as a central early partner through its multibillion-dollar investment and cloud agreement. Later financing rounds drew in additional large investors and pushed the company's valuation sharply higher. By early 2026 OpenAI had raised a major new round that valued the company at roughly 852 billion dollars, placing it among the most valuable privately held companies anywhere. A fuller picture of the AI landscape includes its main rival, Anthropic.
Why it matters
OpenAI sits at the center of the current wave of artificial intelligence. ChatGPT introduced a broad public audience to what modern language models can do, and the company's API became a default building block for startups and large enterprises adding AI features to their products. Its research releases and product launches frequently set the pace that competitors respond to.
The company also draws scrutiny precisely because of that influence. Its governance structure, its safety commitments, and the speed of its model releases are watched closely by regulators, researchers, and the public. For founders and operators tracking where business technology is heading, OpenAI is a reference point both for the opportunities AI creates and for the questions it raises about cost, control, and responsible deployment.
Frequently asked questions
When was OpenAI founded and where is it based?
OpenAI was founded in December 2015 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Who founded OpenAI?
Its founders included Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba, and John Schulman, among others. Elon Musk left the board in 2018.
What products does OpenAI make?
OpenAI builds ChatGPT, the GPT family of language models, the DALL-E image generator, the Sora video model, the Whisper speech system, and a developer API that lets other companies use its models.
How is OpenAI structured?
A nonprofit foundation controls a for-profit operating arm, which was reorganized as a public benefit corporation in 2025. The design is meant to keep the company's mission ahead of pure financial return.
How valuable is OpenAI?
By early 2026, OpenAI had raised a funding round that valued the company at roughly 852 billion dollars, making it one of the most valuable private companies in the world.