Microsoft has announced that Sam Altman, co-founder and former CEO of OpenAI, will join the company to lead a new AI research team. This news comes just three days after Altman was ousted from his role as CEO of the start-up.
OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, an AI tool, has been acquired by Microsoft for several billion dollars. The company has incorporated this technology into its own products such as the Bing search engine. In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, wrote that “Sam and Greg will join colleagues at Microsoft and will lead a new AI research team.”
Sam Altman responded to the announcement on X by saying “The mission continues.” He added that Microsoft had invested billions in OpenAI and had incorporated its technology into their own products.
On Friday, OpenAI’s board of directors announced Sam Altman’s dismissal. They stated that he was not consistently honest in his communications and lost confidence in his ability to manage the company. Several people in leadership positions at OpenAI also resigned after Altman’s dismissal, including Greg Brockman who was among them. The first version of ChatGPT was launched on November 30th 2022 which started the race in Artificial Intelligence development.