OpenAI Merges ChatGPT and Codex Under Brockman — 900M Users, One Agentic Platform
OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman has formally consolidated control over the company’s product strategy, merging ChatGPT, Codex, and the developer API into a single organisation. The move, reported by Wired and TechCrunch on May 16, ends a period of fragmented product leadership at a company approaching a public offering with 900 million weekly active users.
In an internal memo seen by Wired, Brockman wrote: “We’re consolidating our product efforts to execute with maximum focus toward the agentic future, to win across both consumer and enterprise.” The restructuring formalises an arrangement that began in early April when Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of AGI deployment, went on medical leave. Simo collaborated on the changes and is expected to return — no timeline was given.
The new structure
Four product pillars now sit under Brockman:
- Thibault Sottiaux leads core product and platform across consumer, enterprise, and developer surfaces. Sottiaux built Codex into one of OpenAI’s fastest-growing products.
- Nick Turley, who oversaw ChatGPT’s expansion to 900 million weekly active users, moves to a role focused on enterprise products and critical industries.
- Brockman retains existing responsibility for AI infrastructure, including the Stargate data centre programme.
- The developer API is absorbed into the unified platform rather than operating as a standalone business unit.
The structure creates clean accountability lines: Sottiaux owns the platform product, Turley owns enterprise revenue, Brockman owns infrastructure and strategy. There is no ambiguity about who is responsible for what.
The “side quest” purge
The consolidation is the endpoint of a strategic retreat that began in December when Sam Altman called a “code red” and told staff to refocus on the core ChatGPT experience. Since then, OpenAI has systematically eliminated peripheral initiatives:
- Sora was shut down after consuming disproportionate compute relative to revenue and triggering the collapse of a planned $1 billion Disney investment.
- Adult mode for ChatGPT was shelved after pushback from staff, advisors, and investors.
- OpenAI for Science was halted.
- Kevin Weil, head of Sora, and Bill Peebles, who led the product, both departed the company.
Brockman framed the compute constraint on a recent podcast: OpenAI’s computing power is “not enough for even a personal assistant and the Codex line.” When compute is the binding constraint, product sprawl is a direct tax on the main products.
Why now, why Brockman
The merger of ChatGPT and Codex is partly logical — both products increasingly involve the same agentic workflows, the same underlying models, and many of the same enterprise customers. Keeping them under separate leadership produced duplication in roadmap decisions and competition for the same compute budget.
The timing is also IPO-driven. A unified platform story is considerably cleaner to pitch to institutional investors than a collection of overlapping products with separate P&Ls, unresolved compute allocation disputes, and leadership in flux. The four-pillar structure gives the S-1 a legible org chart.
The open question is whether one person can sustainably run both product strategy and infrastructure for a company at OpenAI’s scale. The board has implicitly answered it: Brockman is the only person they trust with both. The side quests are over. What remains is the main quest.