OpenAI to Acquire Statsig to Accelerate Experimentation and Application Development

OpenAI plans to acquire Statsig, the experimentation platform that powers A/B testing, feature flagging and real-time decisioning for OpenAI and other companies.

Together with the acquisition, Statsig Founder and CEO Vijaye Raji will join OpenAI as chief technology officer of its Applications organization, reporting to Fidji Simo, OpenAI said in a Tuesday (Sept. 2) press release.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, according to the release.

The Applications organization is responsible for “how our research reaches and benefits the world,” the release said.

Raji will head product engineering for ChatGPT and Codex, according to the release.

Bringing Statsig in-house will strengthen OpenAI’s ability to accelerate experimentation and enhance the experiences it delivers, the release said.

Statsig employees will become OpenAI employees, the organization will continue operating independently and any future integration will be taken with a “measured approach,” per the release.

“Vijaye has a remarkable record of building new consumer and B2B products and systems at scale,” Simo said in the release. “He’s joining at a time when our models are opening entirely new ways to build, and his leadership will help turn that progress into safe applications that empower people with many new tools to improve their lives, help companies increase their impact and allow developers to build faster and better products.”

Raji said in the release that he and the Statsig team will “continue helping teams ship better software every day.”

“Joining OpenAI as CTO of Applications is an extraordinary opportunity to bring my experience scaling consumer and enterprise products to a mission I deeply believe in: advancing AI in ways that are capable of solving hard problems, reliable and truly beneficial to people everywhere.”

In a Tuesday blog post on the Statsig website, Raji said Statsig will continue to provide its services to its existing customers and invest in its core products.

“Our customers will remain a top priority,” Raji said.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced in May that the company had named Simo, who was head of Instacart at the time, as its CEO of Applications.

“Applications brings together a group of existing business and operational teams responsible for how our research reaches and benefits the world, and Fidji is uniquely qualified to lead this group,” Altman said at the time.

Simo said in June that OpenAI is set to grow its business more than a hundredfold as the synergy among its different lines of business supercharges the company in the coming years.