OpenAI Executive Kevin Weil Is Leaving the Company

A striking development has emerged in artificial intelligence. Maxwell Zeff Business Apr 17, 2026 3:56 PM OpenAI Executive Kevin Weil Is Leaving the Company The former Instagram VP is departing the ChatGPT-maker, which is folding the AI science application he led into Codex. Photograph: Al Drago/Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Kevin Weil, OpenAI’s former chief product officer who was recently tapped to build a new AI workspace for scientists, Prism, is leaving the company, WIRED has confirmed. Weil was previously an early executive leading product at Instagram .

“Today is my last day at OpenAI, as OpenAI for Science is being decentralized into other research teams,” Weil said in a social media post on Friday, shortly after WIRED reported his departure. “It’s been a mind-expanding two years, from Chief Product Officer to joining the research team and starting OpenAI for Science. ” Weil did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WIRED.

Technical Details

OpenAI is also sunsetting Prism, which the company launched as a web app in January to give scientists a better way to work with AI. The company is folding the roughly 10-person team behind it under OpenAI’s head of Codex, Thibault Sottiaux, and aims to incorporate Prism’s capabilities into its desktop Codex app. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the changes and tells WIRED this is part of the company’s effort to unify its business and product strategy.

OpenAI has broader ambitions to turn Codex, its AI coding application, into an “everything app. ” Weil, who joined OpenAI in June 2024, announced last September that he would be starting a new initiative inside of the company called OpenAI for Science. Now, OpenAI is dispersing those employees throughout the company’s product, research, and infrastructure teams.

An OpenAI spokesperson reiterated the company’s commitment to accelerating scientific discovery and says it’s one of the clearest ways AI can benefit humanity. Earlier on Friday, the company announced a new series of AI models—GPT-Rosalind—built to help life sciences researchers work faster. OpenAI is trying to refocus the company around a few key areas, such as enterprise offerings and coding, as the company faces increasing pressure from rivals like Anthropic and gears up to file for an IPO later this year.

Industry Implications

In March, OpenAI’s CEO of AGI deployment, Fidji Simo, told staff that the company needs to simplify its product offerings. The push to divert resources to more consequential efforts resulted in OpenAI discontinuing its Sora video-generation app . Unrelated to Weil’s news, two other executives announced on Friday that they are departing OpenAI.

OpenAI’s chief technology officer of enterprise applications, Srinivas Narayanan, announced internally that he is leaving the company to spend time with his family. Narayanan had joined OpenAI as the company’s VP of engineering. And Bill Peebles, head of Sora, posted on X that he was done at OpenAI as well.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.