By Kimberley Kao

OpenAI said Instacart's chief executive is joining the company to lead its applications business as the ChatGPT maker looks to scale its operations and drive growth.

Sam Altman, who will remain as OpenAI's CEO, said in a statement Wednesday that Fidji Simo will join later this year and report to him.

"Applications brings together a group of existing business and operational teams responsible for how our research reaches and benefits the world," Altman said. Simo will "focus on enabling our 'traditional' company functions to scale as we enter a next phase of growth," he said.

In this new configuration, "I'll be able to increase my focus on research, compute, and safety," Altman said in a post on X. "These are critical as we approach superintelligence."

Simo has served as an OpenAI board member over the past year. In a post on X, Simo said she will remain CEO of Instacart for the next few months and board chair afterward.

Simo joined Instacart in 2021 as its CEO after spending a decade at Meta Platforms' Facebook. She took the grocery-delivery company public in 2023, expanding its core business while diving into other areas, such as advertising.

In an emailed statement, Instacart said it expects the company's soon-to-be-announced new CEO "will be one of its highly talented senior executives."

News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI.

Write to Kimberley Kao at kimberley.kao@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 08, 2025 03:20 ET (07:20 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.