New commission to provide insight as OpenAI builds the world’s best-equipped nonprofit

Already a nonprofit, and already using AI to help people solve hard problems, OpenAI aims to build the best-equipped nonprofit the world has ever seen—combining potentially historic financial resources with something even more powerful: technology that can scale human ingenuity itself.

Imagine a philanthropy whose capacity to invest in communities will grow the more its affiliated company grows in value.

Imagine philanthropy where the currency is not just financial but also foundational—the most consequential technology since electricity, built by the leading AI company, put in the hands of nonprofits throughout California, across America and beyond.

Imagine the uses for philanthropic dollars freed up because the research, discoveries, diagnoses, drug development, teaching, and study of progress and outcomes can all be scaled by AI.

OpenAI believes that innovation should create opportunity for all. Its Board of Directors has directed the company to convene a select group of experts to help OpenAI’s philanthropy understand the most urgent and intractable problems nonprofits face today in delivering on their missions. This commission will also incorporate feedback from leaders and communities in health, science, education, and public services—particularly within OpenAI’s home state of California. Commission members will be announced in April and will submit their insights to the OpenAI Board within 90 days, and the Board will consider these insights in its ongoing work to evolve the OpenAI nonprofit well before the end of 2025.

The Board recognizes the importance of engaging with the philanthropic community and those closest to the work to help inform how OpenAI’s philanthropy can best deploy its potentially historic resources. The guiding principle, and an important part of the commission’s task, is ensuring that OpenAI’s innovation is working for people—not the other way around.