OpenAI has revealed a special one-time award for its AI researchers and engineers across multiple departments, including applied engineering, scaling, and safety. The announcement came just a day before the Microsoft-backed company introduced GPT-5, its most advanced large language model to date.
More than 1,000 employees are eligible for the award. While exact figures remain undisclosed, reports suggest that the highest payouts, reaching up to a million dollars, will go to OpenAI’s leading AI researchers, who already earn multi-million-dollar salaries. Engineers are expected to receive bonuses in the hundreds of thousands on average.
The payouts will not be made in full at once but will instead be spread over the next two years. Qualified employees will have the choice to receive the award in company stock, cash, or a combination of both.
“As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we have been looking at comp for our technical teams given the movement in the market,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. “We very much intend to keep increasing comp as we keep doing better and better as a company. But we wanted to be transparent about this one since it’s a new thing for us.”
This marks the first time OpenAI has extended such bonuses to such a large group, covering about one-third of its total workforce. The decision comes as the global race for AI talent accelerates, with competitors actively seeking to lure OpenAI staff.
Meta has been at the forefront of poaching, prompting OpenAI’s research officer Mark Chen to compare the practice to a home invasion. Recently, Shengjia Zhao, one of the creators of ChatGPT, was appointed chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs. Other rivals such as Elon Musk’s xAI and Thinking Machines, a lab founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, have also recruited several of the company’s technical experts.
However, as the award does not apply to all employees, some risk leaving for better offers elsewhere.
In addition to the bonus programme, OpenAI reportedly plans to allow current and former employees to sell vested shares to investors, potentially earning millions. Altman has suggested that sales could take place at a much higher share price than the current 274 dollars per share, possibly reflecting a company valuation of 500 billion dollars.
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