OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announces 2024 leadership hire of former Microsoft executive Guillaume Sottiaux, signaling major ChatGP

Editorial illustration for OpenAI hires Sottiaux in 2024, shifts from internal tools to ChatGPT overhaul

OpenAI hires Sottiaux in 2024, shifts from internal...

OpenAI hires Sottiaux in 2024, shifts from internal tools to ChatGPT overhaul

By AI Daily Post Edited by Brian Petersen, Editor-in-Chief

June 11, 2026 • 2 min read

OpenAI is rewriting the playbook for its flagship chatbot. The company’s current effort aims to turn the simple ChatGPT interface into a personalized AI agent that can manage tasks across work and home, a product it’s already dubbing a “super app.” At the center of that push is Thibault Sottiaux, who was named head of core products last month. In his new role Sottiaux oversees both ChatGPT and Codex and is charged with fusing them into the all‑in‑one platform.

To clear the path, OpenAI has already pulled the plug on several standalone tools, including the video app Sora and an AI platform for scientists, and many of the executives who ran those projects have departed. Sottiaux now reports directly to Greg Brockman, while the AGI deployment chief, Fidji Simo, is on medical leave. He helped build Codex, one of OpenAI’s fastest‑growing revenue streams, but this time the challenge is a consumer product that sees roughly a billion weekly active users.

“It’s incredibly exciting and mildly terrifying at the same time,” he told us earlier this week.

But he notes that “a lot of what is going to be made available for everyone in ChatGPT is already available in the Codex app,” and OpenAI has already said that it plans to merge Codex into ChatGPT in the coming weeks.

— OpenAI, Meet the OpenAI Engineer Leading ChatGPT's Biggest Transformation Yet - WIRED AI

Why this matters

We now watch an OpenAI pivot that puts a single engineer at the helm of its most ambitious ChatGPT rewrite. Sottiaux arrived in 2024, first building internal tools for researchers—a role he filled at DeepMind—then quickly turned his attention to what became Codex, the AI coding assistant that gained notable traction. The company’s new “super app” label signals a push to reshape the chatbot from a narrow conversational front‑end into a personalized agent capable of handling tasks across work and life.

For developers, this could mean deeper integration points, but the breadth of the claim raises questions about feasibility and performance at scale. Founders may see an opportunity to embed a unified AI layer, yet the shift from internal tooling to a consumer‑facing platform is untested territory for OpenAI. Researchers will likely monitor how the engineering focus balances openness with the drive toward a monolithic product.

Whether the “all‑in” bet translates into tangible value remains uncertain, and we’ll be watching the rollout for concrete signals.