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OpenAI is eyeing an expansion in California.
The company’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, Chris Lehane, revealed the development and said an announcement is coming “sooner rather than later” in an interview on California Politics 360. It comes days after the artificial intelligence company announced its restructuring.
The company, famous for its online chatbot known as ChatGPT, started out as a nonprofit. Under the reorganization, the company will have a nonprofit side for decision making and a for-profit entity that will allow the company to raise money, secure investors and operate more like a business. The new structure ultimately allows OpenAI to more easily profit off of its artificial intelligence technology.
“We’re now in a position that, in fact, we’ll be able to expand our operations,” Lehane said.
The company recently signed an agreement with California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who approved of the company’s restructuring. Bonta told reporters Tuesday that in exchange, the company committed to staying in the state and said his office will be monitoring the situation.
“We intend to be here. We’re not going to be like one of those other companies that has left California,” Lehane said.
When asked if he could share more on the expansion, including what parts of the state that could include, Lehane said, “this news will be coming sooner rather than later.”
“Amongst the things we’ve been looking at is how do we expand our footprint? You know, in this state, and we wanted to make sure we had clarity, certainty, visibility, in terms of the restructuring,” Lehane said. “With that certainty, we can now move forward with plans that we’ve been developing to broaden and expand the company, specifically here in California.”
“Stay tuned,” he said.
An expansion would be valuable in California, with Lehane stating that “off the top of his head” the company had over $1 billion in direct economic impact on the state and more than $2 billion indirectly last year.
When asked to respond to criticism that OpenAI’s new structure could allow the for-profit side to take priority over the nonprofit, Lehane said the nonprofit will oversee everything and noted OpenAI is becoming a public benefits corporation.
“I believe California was the first, if not the first one of the first states to actually pass a law encouraging, promoting, facilitating the idea of companies doing public benefit corporations,” he said. “Under the law, public benefits corporations can consider the interests of all stakeholders. So obviously that includes shareholders, but that also includes employees, that includes partners, that includes the broader community.”
Lehane said the nonprofit’s purpose is to carry the company’s mission.
“And the mission is to build AGI [artificial general intelligence] that benefits all humans,” Lehane said.
Lehane also weighed in on a recently proposed ballot initiative in California that would set new rules on how AI chatbots interact with kids.
“Child safety was part of the conversations we had with the attorney general,” Lehane said. Lehane said Open AI’s CEO Sam Altman first spoke with Bonta about child safety broadly, which helped develop a teen safety plan the company recently announced.
“I do think as we also go forward, we need to be super sensitive to making sure we’re putting those types of guardrails in place versus doing things that may be unintended, like effectively banning, a technology that is going to be fundamental to the ability of kids to learn,” Lehane said.
Watch the full interview with Chris Lehane in the video player above.
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KCRA 3 Political Director Ashley Zavala reports in-depth coverage of top California politics and policy issues. She is also the host of “California Politics 360.” Get informed each Sunday at 8:30 a.m. on KCRA 3.
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