OpenAI disbands catastrophic-risk team amid executive exodus

OpenAI's Preparedness team, formed in December 2023 to track catastrophic risks across cybersecurity, CBRN, persuasion, and model autonomy ^[3], was formally dissolved in late July 2026, with its work on biology and cybersecurity handed to experienced members of existing teams rather than kept as a standalone unit ^[2]. The same month, Head of Safety Systems Johannes Heidecke departed as OpenAI merged its safety and research functions, with Mia Glaese absorbing an expanded VP of Research and Safety role and Saachi Jain stepping in as interim safety lead ^[1]. Chief Research Officer Mark Chen framed the merger as a response to faster model development and shorter release cycles requiring closer coordination ^[1], but critics counter that folding a catastrophic-risk unit into product-adjacent teams removes the one group whose job was to flag risk regardless of ship dates ^[2].

Preparedness is not an isolated cut. OpenAI disbanded its Superalignment team roughly 16 months after formation in 2024 when co-leads Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike departed ^[4], then folded its AGI Readiness team into other groups later that year after adviser Miles Brundage resigned ^[7]. Reporting describes the next casualty, the Mission Alignment team, as a successor effort to Superalignment; it was dissolved in February 2026 after about 16 months ^[2]. Jan Leike said on his way out that safety culture and processes had taken a backseat to shiny products ^[7], a line repeatedly invoked as context for each subsequent dissolution, and one that now reads less like a one-off complaint and more like a description of a recurring cycle: stand up a dedicated safety team, watch its senior staff exit, then dissolve the team and redistribute its mandate.

The Preparedness fold sits inside a much larger reshuffle. Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap announced his departure in mid-August 2026 ^[5], days after Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser said she would step down after only about eight months in the role ^[6]; both join a 2026 tracker naming roughly a dozen departed OpenAI executives ^[9]. OpenAI is reportedly preparing for an IPO targeting roughly an 852 billion dollar valuation ^[8], and departing staff describe a cultural shift from ambitious research bets toward the operational grind of serving ChatGPT to enterprise customers and Microsoft ^[6]. That timing does not prove causation, but it means the catastrophic-risk team disappeared in the same stretch the company's commercial machinery was being rebuilt for a public offering, not in a quiet moment.

OpenAI's Summer 2026 AI Safety Index score from the Future of Life Institute was a C, tied with Google DeepMind and behind Anthropic's C+ ^[3]. Analysts argue that a frontier lab dismantling independent safety oversight sets a precedent other companies and regulators will notice, especially with the US Congress and the EU actively debating AI governance mandates ^[4]. That risk is compounded by a second gap: Chloe Bakalar, OpenAI's only dedicated AI ethicist, left in July 2026 with no replacement named ^[5], so the company currently has neither an independent catastrophic-risk unit nor a dedicated ethics lead.