OpenAI is losing two of the key figures behind its significant projects. Kevin Weil, who headed the science research initiative, and Bill Peebles, the creator of the AI video tool Sora, both announced their departures on Friday. These exits occur as OpenAI focuses on enterprise AI and its upcoming “superapp.”
The departures follow OpenAI’s choice to reduce “side quests,” including projects like Sora and OpenAI for Science. Sora, which was losing approximately $1 million daily in compute costs, was shut down last month.
OpenAI for Science was the group responsible for Prism, an AI-powered platform aimed at accelerating scientific discovery. This group is being integrated into “other research teams,” as stated in Weil’s social media post.
“It’s been an enlightening two years, from Chief Product Officer to joining the research team and starting OpenAI for Science,” Weil stated. “Accelerating science will be a tremendously positive outcome of our push to AGI.”
The team had a brief and challenging journey after its formal announcement in October 2025. Weil deleted a tweet claiming GPT-5 had solved 10 previously unresolved Erdős mathematical problems, but this claim was quickly refuted by the mathematician running erdosproblems.com.
Weil’s departure comes a day after his team released GPT-Rosalind, a new model aimed at advancing life sciences research and drug discovery.
In a social media post announcing his departure, Peebles credited Sora with triggering significant investment in video across the industry and argued that the research producing such a tool needs space separate from the company’s main roadmap.
“Cultivating entropy is essential for a research lab to thrive long-term,” he wrote.