OpenAI's COO, Fidji Simo, has resigned due to health reasons, less than a year after joining the company

According to Pulse Beat monitoring, OpenAI's AGI Deployment CEO Fidji Simo has announced her departure from a full-time position, transitioning to a part-time advisor role. She went on leave three months ago due to a worsening chronic illness and has now confirmed that her recovery process is taking longer than expected, requiring her to focus on treatment.

Simo was a key executive at OpenAI, second only to Sam Altman. She previously served as the CEO of the US online grocery delivery platform Instacart and had also been in charge of the Facebook App. Since joining OpenAI in 2025, she has overseen the product and business teams, covering operations such as ChatGPT and Codex, before later becoming the AGI Deployment CEO.

In April of this year, Simo took leave due to a neuroimmune disease, initially planning to be away for only a few weeks. Subsequently, OpenAI President Greg Brockman took over the product work. Her previous product and business responsibilities are expected to be shared among Brockman, CFO Sarah Friar, and Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon.

Simo stated that she has been living with the chronic illness for seven years, with no current cure. In the future, apart from continuing as an advisor to OpenAI, she will also be involved in AI biomedicine projects Chronicle BioAI and CODA Research.