Catenaa, Saturday, March 21, 2026- OpenAI plans to almost double its headcount by the end of 2026 as it seeks to fend off competition from Anthropic and Google.
According to the Financial Times, the maker of AI assistant ChatGPT will look to increase headcount to about 8,000 from about 4,500.
The new hires will largely work across product development, engineering, research, and sales, according to the report.
OpenAI has taken new office space in San Francisco to accommodate its growing staff count, taking its footprint in the city to more than 1 million square feet, the newspaper added.
The hiring plans come amid a race with competitors, including Anthropic and Microsoft, to woo corporate customers using AI as coding assistants.
Firms like OpenAI have unveiled several AI models that can take on increasingly complicated tasks, from analyzing company earnings reports to writing code and generating startlingly realistic-looking images and videos.
Last week, OpenAI revealed plans to acquire Astral, a startup that makes Python tools for developers.
Earlier in March, it agreed to buy AI security startup Promptfoo, adding tools to test and secure AI agents before deployment. Last year, it bought startups including Software Applications Inc. and Neptune.
The firm is also in advanced discussions to form a joint venture with private equity firms, including TPG, Brookfield Asset Management, and Bain Capital, that would focus on bolstering the adoption of its AI software, Bloomberg reported.
The company’s latest funding round valued it at $840 billion, as Big Tech and Masayoshi Son’s Softbank joined its blockbuster $110 billion round.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly issued an internal “code red” in early December last year, pausing non-core projects and redirecting teams to accelerate development in response to Google’s Gemini 3.
