Fidji Simo, OpenAI's No. 2 executive, plans to step down from her full-time role after an extended medical leave, according to people familiar with the matter.

She communicated her decision in a note to staff Thursday, saying that her medical condition had worsened and her road to recovery would be much longer than anticipated. She will become a part-time adviser to the company.

The move is the latest executive shake-up within OpenAI as it prepares for a highly anticipated public offering as soon as this year and tries to catch up with its rival Anthropic among business customers. Simo was selected by Chief Executive Sam Altman to lead OpenAI's product and business divisions, and she was widely expected to take on an even larger role leading the company once it went public.

Now, Altman will have to find an alternative.

Simo had previously served as the CEO of grocery-deliver app Instacart and as a top executive at Facebook, making her well-suited to growing OpenAI's consumer-facing business.

But ChatGPT's growth stalled towards the end of last year, contributing to missed internal revenue goals. The company instead pivoted its focus to building AI-powered coding tools after falling behind Anthropic in that lucrative market. Simo led early efforts to create a so-called "superapp," which OpenAI launched today, and also pared back distracting side projects such as the video-generator app Sora.

At the Allen & Co. retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho, this week, OpenAI executives discussed how the firm plans to compete with Anthropic to win over more enterprise customers, according to someone who spoke with them.

Write to Berber Jin at berber.jin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 09, 2026 19:12 ET (23:12 GMT)

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