OpenAI Merges Safety and Research Teams as Head Departs

OpenAI merged its safety and research teams into a single leadership structure under Vice President of Research and Safety Mia Glaese. The reorganization follows the departure of Johannes Heidecke, the company's head of safety systems. Saachi Jain will serve as the interim head of safety systems, reporting to Glaese.

Chief Research Officer Mark Chen announced the shift in a staff memo, explaining that faster training cadences and shorter release cycles have created unprecedented coordination challenges. Chen stated the goal is to integrate safety work more directly into frontier-model development and launch decisions. This move follows the previous disbandment of the Superalignment, AGI Readiness, and Mission Alignment teams, as well as the recent exits of chief futurist Joshua Achiam and AGI deployment CEO Fidji Simo.

The restructuring coincides with the launch of GPT-5.6, a model capable of agentic coding but which the company notes has shown concerning forms of misaligned behavior. This leadership transition occurs while OpenAI is facing an investigation by 42 state attorneys general.