OpenAI’s Head Futurist Is Departing the Organization

OpenAI’s chief futurist Joshua Achiam informed colleagues on Tuesday about his decision to leave the company later this month after nearly nine years, according to WIRED. Achiam, who previously oversaw a team focused on maintaining the organization’s nonprofit mission, shared with OpenAI staff that his departure wasn’t triggered by any specific reason, but rather has been on his mind for some time.

“Now that the world is aware of the mission, it feels feasible to pursue it outside the confines of a frontier lab,” Achiam mentioned in a message to staff acquired by WIRED. “I believe in a future of peace, extraordinary prosperity, and limitless opportunities—both socially and scientifically. Regardless of where I go next, I will continue collaborating with you to make this vision a reality.”

OpenAI hasn’t announced a successor for Achiam’s position, which bridged the AI safety and policy teams, focusing on assessing the potential risks and advantages associated with the advancement of artificial intelligence. He collaborated with senior leaders, including Global Affairs Chief Chris Lehane, to support government regulations that align with OpenAI’s mission: ensuring AGI benefits humanity as a whole.

Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, OpenAI has restructured its safety, product, and research teams multiple times as it transformed from a small research lab into a significant tech entity. In 2024, OpenAI initiated a “mission alignment team” led by Achiam, aimed at upholding the organization’s mission. This team was disbanded in February, leading to Achiam’s new role as chief futurist.

In the past year, OpenAI has sought to connect its AI research with policy teams as part of an initiative to create guidelines and standards that foresee the direction of its technology. As these departments began to work more closely, several OpenAI researchers, such as Boaz Barak, Noam Brown, and Adrien Ecoffet, have engaged more deeply in policy initiatives.

Dean Ball, a former White House AI adviser, joined OpenAI this week as the head of strategic futures, with a brief overlap with Achiam. In his role, Ball is also anticipated to collaborate with researchers and policy experts.

Achiam is the latest in a series of safety-oriented leaders to exit OpenAI, joining an increasing number of departures as the company gets ready to go public. Jan Leike, who co-led OpenAI’s Superalignment team researching the control of advanced AI models, left for Anthropic in 2024.

In the same year, Miles Brundage, head of policy research, and Steven Adler, who led research on the hazardous capabilities of AI models, both left to establish nonprofits advocating for stringent safety and security standards in AI labs. Andrea Vallone, who directed OpenAI’s research on how ChatGPT should address users in emotional distress, joined Leike’s team at Anthropic at the end of 2025.

Joining OpenAI as an intern in 2017, Achiam later became a research scientist concentrated on AI safety. Internally, he was regarded as a strong advocate for OpenAI’s safety-driven mission but also sparked debate for his occasional critiques of the wider AI safety community.

Earlier this year, he recounted in federal court an incident where he interrupted Elon Musk’s farewell speech upon Musk’s departure from OpenAI in 2018, pointing out that the then-billionaire’s intentions to develop AGI at Tesla might compromise safety. Musk allegedly called Achiam a “jackass,” a moment that Dario Amodei (now CEO of Anthropic) and David Luan (who later became head of Amazon’s AGI lab) commemorated by gifting Achiam a statue depicting a golden donkey’s rear-end, inscribed with the phrase, “Never stop being a jackass for safety.”