OpenAI hires Patreon executives to build

OpenAI has hired three senior executives from Patreon to build a new suite of tools for creators. Sam Yam, the co-founder and former chief technology officer of Patreon, is leading the new Creator Product division alongside former Patreon product lead Drew Rowny and former engineering head Shannon Ma.

Yam announced the move on X on September 23. He wrote that the team will "build together with Creators at OpenAI and share early access to a new set of tools." OpenAI confirmed the hires as part of a strategic expansion into the creator economy.

The hires bring deep expertise in subscription-based creator economies

The trio brings combined experience from building the technology behind Patreon, a platform that pioneered the creator subscription model. Yam co-founded the company with musician Jack Conte 13 years ago and ran its technology for over a decade.

According to Patreon, more than 300,000 creators use its platform to earn recurring income from more than 10 million paying fans each month. Creators have earned more than $10 billion through the platform since 2013. The executives' experience centers on building tools for creators whose livelihoods depend on making things and persuading fans to support them financially.

OpenAI aims to solve what its current tools miss: the business of creator support

OpenAI's existing products, like ChatGPT and DALL-E, are focused on content generation. They do not facilitate the fan-to-creator payment flow that platforms like Patreon own. The new division aims to address this gap.

Generative AI can now produce text, images, audio, and video. However, as content generation becomes easier to copy, community and payment systems may offer a competitive advantage. The hires give OpenAI direct experience in the subscription-based models that generative AI has not yet solved.

OpenAI’s DevDay on Sept. 29 may reveal early access to the new tools

Yam pointed his followers to OpenAI's upcoming DevDay event, scheduled for September 29 in San Francisco. He said he was already experimenting with early versions of the tools. The event may provide the first public clues about what the new creator products will entail.

CEO Sam Altman has also teased a major announcement coming this week.

The move comes amid shifting dynamics in the AI and creator economies

The strategic shift occurs as OpenAI faces growing competition in its core AI market. Data from Comscore shows ChatGPT's share of AI prompt volume fell from 70% in January to 50% in June. Over the same period, Google's Gemini rose from 17% to 30% and Anthropic's Claude grew from 2% to 11%, though total prompt use kept growing.

OpenAI's last major creative product, the video tool Sora, peaked at around 1 million users before falling below 500,000. The company shuttered the Sora app in April.

Meanwhile, the creator economy represents a massive new opportunity. Goldman Sachs estimates it was worth $250 billion and could reach $480 billion by 2027. While brand deals make up about 70% of creator income, subscription models handled by platforms like Patreon, Substack, and Kajabi remain a key revenue source.

OpenAI has a massive distribution channel to tap: its free tier of ChatGPT is used by more than 1 billion people weekly, a tier it began placing ads on last month. Whether those users will pay creators directly, or whether OpenAI will take a cut, is not yet clear. OpenAI's DevDay on September 29 in San Francisco may reveal early clues about the new creator tools.