{"id":579751,"date":"2026-07-11T03:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T03:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/579751\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T03:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T03:36:12","slug":"openais-head-of-safety-is-leaving-the-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/579751\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI\u2019s Head of Safety Is Leaving the Company"},"content":{"rendered":"

OpenAI\u2019s head of safety systems, Johannes Heidecke, told staff this week that he\u2019s leaving the company, WIRED has learned. Heidecke\u2019s departure follows a reorganization that sought to integrate OpenAI\u2019s<\/a> safety and research teams.<\/p>\n

In a memo to staff seen by WIRED, chief research officer Mark Chen<\/a> said OpenAI\u2019s safety teams will now report to the company\u2019s VP of research and head of alignment Mia Glaese, who will take on an expanded role as VP of research and safety. Saachi Jain, who previously led safety teams at OpenAI, will become the company\u2019s interim head of safety systems, reporting to Glaese.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe demands on safety continue to increase\u2014we are training models at a much faster cadence, and release cycles have come down greatly in turn,\u201d said Chen in the memo. \u201cAs a result, we have bigger coordination challenges around safety today than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heidecke joined OpenAI in 2021 as an AI safety analyst. He took over as the company\u2019s head of safety systems in 2024, after the previous head, Lilian Weng, left to cofound Thinking Machines Lab with other OpenAI researchers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re grateful for Johannes\u2019 contributions to OpenAI,\u201d said Chen in a statement to WIRED. \u201cIt\u2019s important that our safety work is integrated with frontier-model development, with an earlier and more direct role in shaping key model, product, and launch decisions. We\u2019re excited for this next chapter under Mia Glaese\u2019s leadership across research and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heidecke\u2019s departure comes as OpenAI tries to launch increasingly capable AI models. Earlier this week, the company launched GPT-5.6, its most capable model to date on agentic coding tasks. However, compared to previous models, OpenAI says GPT-5.6 showed concerning forms of misaligned behavior<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Heidecke is the latest safety-focused leader to depart from OpenAI in recent days. Earlier this week, OpenAI\u2019s chief futurist, Joshua Achiam<\/a>, also told colleagues he would leave the company after nine years researching safety.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also not just OpenAI\u2019s safety teams that are changing. Earlier this week, OpenAI\u2019s CEO of AGI deployment Fidji Simo told staff she would step down from her role<\/a> after an extended medical leave. The company said that Greg Brockman would continue leading OpenAI\u2019s product teams<\/a>, which he had been assigned to do in her absence, but would also take on go-to-market strategy as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OpenAI\u2019s head of safety systems, Johannes Heidecke, told staff this week that he\u2019s leaving the company, WIRED has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,3841,289,290,18,19,17,10570,307,1057,4670,82],"class_list":["post-579751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-ai-safety","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-models","tag-openai","tag-safety","tag-silicon-valley","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116899255834584139","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}