What is OpenAI?
OpenAI is an AI research company that created ChatGPT, DALL-E, GPT-5, and Sora. Founded in 2015, it became a household name in 2022 when ChatGPT captured the world's attention and has continued to lead AI development through 2025.
Mission
"Ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity." OpenAI aims to develop safe, beneficial AI—though its methods are debated.
History
2015: Founding
Founded by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and others as a nonprofit research lab. Initial $1 billion commitment.
2019: Transition
Created "capped-profit" structure to raise money for expensive AI training. Elon Musk departed the board.
2022: ChatGPT Launch
November 30: ChatGPT launched. 100 million users in 2 months—fastest-growing consumer app ever at the time.
2023: GPT-4 & Growth
GPT-4 launched with multimodal capabilities. Microsoft invested $10+ billion. Valued at $80+ billion.
2024: Sora & O1
Released Sora video generation and O1 reasoning models. Continued rapid expansion of ChatGPT features.
2025: GPT-5 Era
GPT-5 launched in August 2025, unifying previous models into a single, more capable system. Features include 1 million token context window, advanced memory, multi-step reasoning, and significantly reduced hallucinations. Now the default model in ChatGPT.
Key Products (2025)
- ChatGPT — Conversational AI for text, code, analysis (now powered by GPT-5)
- GPT-5 — Most advanced language model with 1M token context
- DALL-E 3 — Advanced image generation from text
- Sora — Video generation from text (launched 2024)
- Whisper — Speech recognition (open source)
- API — Developers build on OpenAI's models
GPT-5 Key Features
- Unified model — Combines reasoning, vision, memory, and task execution
- Massive context — Up to 1 million token input, 100K output
- Professional-level performance — Matches human experts in many occupations
- Reduced hallucinations — Significant improvement in accuracy
- Agentic capabilities — Can perform multi-step tasks autonomously
Impact
- Made AI accessible to hundreds of millions of users
- Triggered AI race among tech giants (Google, Anthropic, Meta)
- Drove massive investment in AI industry
- Sparked global discussions about AI regulation
- ChatGPT projected to generate ~$20 billion revenue in 2025
Key People
- Sam Altman — CEO
- Greg Brockman — President
- Mira Murati — CTO (departed 2024)
Summary
- • OpenAI created ChatGPT and the GPT series, culminating in GPT-5 (2025)
- • Founded 2015 as nonprofit, transitioned to capped-profit
- • GPT-5 features 1M token context and professional-level performance
- • Microsoft partnership remains key, valued at $150+ billion