OpenAI announces million-dollar bonuses to nearly 1,000 employees to retain AI talent

MUMBAI — ChatGPT maker OpenAI has announced massive bonus payouts for about 1,000 employees, which is approximately one-third of its full-time workforce.

On the eve of GPT-5's launch, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent a surprise message to employees via communication platform Slack. A quarterly bonus for two years was awarded to researchers and software engineers in the firm's applied engineering, scaling, and safety domains, according to The Verge.

The payouts vary by role and seniority. Top researchers will receive mid-single-digit millions as bonus, while engineers will get hundreds of thousands. Bonuses will be distributed quarterly for two years and can be received in stock, cash, or a combination of both.

Altman informed that the rise in compensation was a result of market dynamics, likely driven by the demand for AI talent.

“As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we have been looking at comp for our technical teams given the movement in the market,” The Verge cited Altman's message to employees as saying.

Also read: ChatGPT may face capacity crunches ahead of GPT-5 launch: Sam Altman

“We very much intend to keep increasing comp as we keep doing better and better as a company,” he wrote. “But we wanted to be transparent about this one since it’s a new thing for us,” he added.

Tech giants and well-funded startups in Silicon Valley are intensifying competition for AI expertise, announcing bonuses to attract talent. Altman has recently lost several key researchers to Meta, while Elon Musk's xAI is also seeking to attract talent.

India is OpenAI’s second-largest market in the world after the US, and it may well become its biggest market in the near future, according to its CEO Sam Altman.

GPT‑5 is available to all users, with Plus subscribers getting more usage, and Pro subscribers getting access to GPT‑5 pro, a version with extended reasoning for even more comprehensive and accurate answers.

“GPT‑5 is a unified system with a smart, efficient model that answers most questions, a deeper reasoning model (GPT‑5 thinking) for harder problems, and a real‑time router that quickly decides which to use based on conversation type, complexity, tool needs, and your explicit intent,” the company noted.