AI: OpenAI's 'CEO of Applications' goes to work. RTZ #834

OpenAI is running far ahead of its core ChatGPT app driven by GPT in all its forms. With AI Search and AI Browsers, and likely many more AI applications to come.

OpenAI’s recently appointed ‘CEO of Applications’, former Instacart CEO Fidji Simo is getting busy. I wrote about her appointment in May, highlighting how founder/CEO Sam Altman has a firm eye on the holy grail ‘Applications’ Box #6 in my AI Tech Stack chart.

All while keeping the company’s pole position in Box 3 LLM AI GPT-5 as core AI software infrastructure. It’s a multi-prong execution strategy, where OpenAI has to hit the marks on several AGI roadmap execution and AI scaling challenges all at the same time.

The Verge lays out the applications org changes in “OpenAI starts building out its app team”:

“OpenAI has started to build out its Applications team under Fidji Simo, its new CEO of Applications, who left her former position as Instacart’s CEO to start in the executive role on August 18th. On Tuesday, the company confirmed it’s shuffling executive roles, bringing on a new CTO of applications, and acquiring a product analytics company for $1.1 billion.”

Here, OpenAI is filling out its capabilities in AI coding and testing with a billion dollar plus stock acquisition of product testing AI startup Statsig. Timely after it lost out Windsurf to Google a few weeks ago due to ongoing organizational negotiations with partner Microsoft. It’s all developer focused in this ‘vibe coding’ AI era. All while scaling AI in so many new directions.

“Statsig, the company OpenAI is acquiring, specializes in A/B testing and other features for companies looking to improve their products, and OpenAI is bringing on its founder and CEO, Vijaye Raji, as a new C-suite executive. Raji will be OpenAI’s CTO of Applications, heading up product engineering for both ChatGPT and Codex, “with responsibilities that span core systems and product lines including infrastructure and Integrity,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post. He’ll report directly to Simo.”

Statsig falls in the Software Infrastructure, Middleware, and Developer Tools Box #5 in the AI Tech Stack chart above.

“Once the acquisition is finalized, Statsig employees will become OpenAI employees,” OpenAI wrote in the blog post, noting that the deal’s close will be subject to regulatory approval. “It will continue operating independently and serving its customer base out of its Seattle office. We’ll take a measured approach to any future integration, ensuring continuity for current customers and enabling the team to stay focused on what they do best.”

Other org changes abound at OpenAI with CEO Sam Altman drawing out the roadmap:

“OpenAI also announced it was shuffling some other executive positions.”

“Srinivas Narayanan, who heads up the company’s engineering and oversaw the development of ChatGPT, developer APIs, and more, is being promoted to another brand-new C-suite executive role: CTO of B2B Applications. Narayanan will oversee all the business-side applications, covering startups, enterprises, and government, and he’ll report directly to OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap.”

This one is notable due to the obvious importance ot AI Enterprise opportunities directly for OpenAI, while it also focuses on with partner Microsoft.

Also notable is the transition of OpenAI’s visible chief product officer hire from Meta, Kevin Weil, to the AI research side of its organization:

“Kevin Weil, OpenAI’s CPO, will be transitioning onto the research side of OpenAI’s business, the company confirmed. He’ll be spinning up a new team at the company as its VP of AI for Science, working closely with Mark Chen, OpenAI’s chief research officer. As part of that transition, Weil’s former product team, including head of ChatGPT Nick Turley, will now report directly to Simo.”

This indicates that Simo will take on product management roles as she leads the AI applications roadmap.

All these changes are ahead of a very busy fall and soon 2026 for OpenAI and the entire industry.

Most of the AI applications and services we’ll be using in this AI Tech Wave soon, are likely not even developed, built and rolled out at scale. Not to mention the AI gadgets that OpenAI is cooking up with Jony Ive’s help after acquiring his organization in a $6.5 billion acquisition again just a few weeks ago.

It all points to a robust AI pipeline coming down the pike. Stay tuned.

(NOTE: The discussions here are for information purposes only, and not meant as investment advice at any time. Thanks for joining us here)