OpenAI’s Indian-Origin CTO Srinivas Narayanan Quits

OpenAI’s chief technology officer (CTO) of B2B applications, Srinivas Narayanan, has announced his departure from the company. He said he will be leaving the Sam Altman-led company at the end of the week, bringing to a close a three-year stint during one of its highest-growth phases.

In posts shared on X and LinkedIn, the Indian-origin executive said the last three years at OpenAI had been “an incredible journey that felt more like ten”. 

“With the recent and upcoming product launches, this felt like the right time to step back,” he wrote. 

Narayanan said OpenAI built and shipped some of the fastest-growing products in history, including ChatGPT and its API platform, without any established playbook to follow. 

He added that he now plans to spend some time with his ageing parents in India before deciding his next move.

An alumnus of IIT Madras and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Narayanan joined OpenAI in April 2023 as vice president of engineering. He was elevated to the role of CTO of B2B applications in September 2025.

Prior to this, he spent over a decade at Meta as VP of engineering. He also worked at IBM before holding leadership roles at Tavant Technologies and cofounding Viralizr.

His departure coincides with a series of leadership transitions at OpenAI. Bill Peebles, who led OpenAI’s now-defunct short-form video app Sora, and Kevin Weil, vice president for science, also announced their exits recently. 

Meanwhile, OpenAI has been expanding aggressively across India and the Asia-Pacific region. India is among OpenAI’s fastest-growing markets, with over 10 Cr reported weekly active ChatGPT users.

Earlier, the company also announced plans to open offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru by the end of 2026 and unveiled its ‘OpenAI for India’ initiative, alongside partnerships with the Tata Group for AI infrastructure and with JioHotstar for in-stream commerce integration.

Last month, it also onboarded JioStar CEO Kiran Mani as managing director to lead its Asia-Pacific operations. Mani will be based out of the company’s Singapore headquarters, reporting directly to CFO Jason Kwon. He is expected to join OpenAI in June. 

The company had also said it is expanding its certification programmes in India, with Tata Consultancy Services becoming the first participating organisation outside the US. In addition, OpenAI will provide more than 1 Lakh ChatGPT Edu licences to educational institutions and has partnered with leading Indian institutions to roll out ChatGPT Edu and structured AI training across campuses.

 

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