OpenAI has made a major personnel change, hiring Instacart CEO and former Facebook executive Fidji Simo to serve as CEO of Applications.

In a post on the company’s site, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared a message that was shared with employees. In the post, Altman discusses how much OpenAI has changed over the years, and the ways in which it has expanded.

We started OpenAI as a research lab with a mission to ensure artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits everyone.

Over the past two and a half years, we have started doing two additional big things. First, we have become a global product company serving hundreds of millions of users worldwide and growing very quickly. More recently, we’ve also become an infrastructure company, building the systems that help us advance our research and deliver AI tools at unprecedented scale. And as discussed earlier this week, we will also operate one of the largest non-profits.

Each of these is a massive effort that could be its own large company. We’re in a privileged position to be scaling at a pace that lets us do them all simultaneously, and bringing on exceptional leaders is a key part of doing that well.

Altman then goes on to say that the company is appointing Simo to serve as CEO of OpenAI Applications.

To strengthen our execution, I’m excited to announce Fidji Simo is joining as our CEO of Applications, reporting directly to me. I remain the CEO of OpenAI and will continue to directly oversee success across all pillars of OpenAI – Research, Compute, and Applications – ensuring we stay aligned and integrated across all areas. I will work closely with our board on making sure our non-profit has maximum positive impact.

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. Serving as an OpenAI board member over the past year, Fidji has already contributed a great deal to our company. She will transition from her role at Instacart over the next few months and join OpenAI later this year.

In her new role, Fidji will focus on enabling our “traditional” company functions to scale as we enter a next phase of growth. I’m passionate about many of these areas and I will stay closely involved with key company decisions. Fidji brings a rare blend of leadership, product and operational expertise, and genuine commitment to ensuring our technology benefits everyone.

Altman says it will increase his focus on overseeing the Research, Compute, and Safety Systems teams.

“Joining OpenAI at this critical moment is an incredible privilege and responsibility,” said Simo. “This organization has the potential of accelerating human potential at a pace never seen before and I am deeply committed to shaping these applications toward the public good.”