Sam Altman Says OpenAI Going Public in 2026 Would Be 'Ill-Advised'

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said an initial public offering for the company in 2026 would be "ill-advised," according to an interview with Fortune reported by The Verge.

During the roughly 45-minute conversation, Altman confirmed there would be no OpenAI IPO next year, addressing speculation about the artificial intelligence company's future ownership structure and access to public capital markets.

The interview covered a range of other topics, according to The Verge, including a recent hacking incident involving Hugging Face, a platform widely used by AI developers to share and access machine learning models.

Altman also discussed the concept of recursive self-improvement in artificial intelligence systems, a process in which an AI could enhance its own capabilities without direct human intervention, and the theoretical possibility of building an AI system beyond human control, according to the report.

The Verge did not report specific reasons Altman gave for calling a 2026 IPO "ill-advised," and further details of his comments on AI safety and the security incident were not disclosed in the available excerpt.

OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has grown into one of the most closely watched companies in the technology sector amid rapid advances in generative AI. Questions about the company's corporate structure and long-term financing plans have persisted as it continues to expand its commercial operations.