Kevin Weil and Bill Peebles Exit OpenAI
OpenAI is parting ways with two key figures behind its most daring projects. Kevin Weil, who headed the firm's scientific research project, and Bill Peebles, the developer of the AI video tool Sora, both declared their exits. The departures occur as OpenAI focuses on enterprise AI and its upcoming "superapp."
The exits come after OpenAI's choice to reduce “side quests,” such as customer-oriented initiatives like Sora and OpenAI for Science. Sora, estimated to be losing $1 million daily in compute expenses, was closed last month.
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OpenAI for Science was the internal research team that developed Prism, an AI-driven platform designed to speed up scientific exploration. According to Weil's announcement on social media, it's being incorporated into "other research teams."
The team experienced a brief and rocky journey following its official announcement in October 2025. Weil removed a tweet asserting that GPT-5 had found solutions to 10 unsolved Erdős mathematical problems, but that assertion quickly collapsed when the mathematician managing erdosproblems.com challenged it.
Weil's exit follows just a day after his team launched GPT-Rosalind, a novel model aimed at speeding up life sciences research and drug development.
In a social media announcement regarding his exit, Peebles attributed a “significant level of investment in video throughout the industry” to Sora and contended that the type of research that created the video tool necessitates a departure from the company’s primary roadmap.
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Wired reports that OpenAI is losing its chief technology officer of enterprise applications, Srinivas Narayanan. Narayanan is said to have conveyed the news internally that he would be departing to dedicate more time to his family.
OpenAI is heavily focusing on enterprise AI and an upcoming “superapp,” seemingly methodically scaling back initiatives that aren’t aligned with that strategy. Sora and OpenAI for Science are both victims of this consolidation.
The leadership change is remarkable in its speed. Only weeks ago, Fidji Simo, head of Applications, took medical leave, and COO Brad Lightcap transitioned to a special projects position — a significant weakening of OpenAI’s commercial leadership team.
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In addition to Weil, Narayanan, and Peebles, numerous other OpenAI staff members have departed due to strategic and ethical disputes in recent months. OpenAI is not the only one — a wider trend of AI researchers has departed from major labs to start their own companies, motivated by the chance to create on their own conditions.