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12 executives who left OpenAI in 2026

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@ 14/08/2026

Katherine Li

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Lauren Edmonds

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman waiting for an event at the G7 Summit. — OpenAI continues to undergo significant leadership shake-ups, with multiple senior executives departing in 2026.
Mandel NGAN / AFP via Getty Images

OpenAI's revolving door is still spinning.

The ChatGPT maker has lost a string of senior leaders in 2026, including former operating chief Brad Lightcap, applications CEO Fidji Simo, chief revenue officer Denise Dresser, and executives overseeing marketing, enterprise products, science, safety, and ethics. Some left to start new ventures, while some stepped back for health reasons.

The departures follow another year of turnover in 2025, when OpenAI lost its chief people and communications officers, a top researcher who went on to launch an AI-science startup, and at least seven researchers recruited by Meta.

Here are the prominent OpenAI leaders who have headed for the exits in 2026.

Denise Dresser

OpenAI announced in August that its chief revenue officer, Denise Dresser, is leaving the company. Dresser began the position in December 2025.

"Denise will leave OpenAI to pursue other opportunities following a transition period, during which she will work closely with the business team to support our customers," the company wrote in a blog post.

Dali Rajic will take over the role.

Brad Lightcap

Brad Lightcap, who worked at OpenAI since 2018, announced his departure on X in August. Lightcap told his followers that he's leaving the startup "to start something new."

"Over the last few months, I've been focused on the next horizon and what would stand in the way of mission success. I believe there are a few important new things the world will need to get right as we enter this next period," Lightcap said on X. "I'll have more to share soon, but I believe in OpenAI more than ever and am excited to help you all advance the mission from a different vantage point."

Lightcap began his tenure at OpenAI as chief financial officer before transitioning to chief operating officer in 2022. In April, OpenAI said Lightcap moved to a role focused on special projects.

Fidji Simo

In July, Fidji Simo announced she would step down from her role as OpenAI's CEO of applications and transition to a part-time advisor role. Simo, who was diagnosed with postural tachycardia syndrome, or POTS, in 2019, initially took medical leave in April.

"Over the last seven years, I've spent countless hours in doctors' offices, dealing with symptoms, treatments, insurance, uncertainty, and all the invisible work that comes with being a patient," Simo wrote on X in July. "Like millions of others living with chronic illness, I've experienced firsthand how difficult healthcare can be to navigate, even when you have every possible advantage."

Simo became the CEO of applications in May 2025.

Kevin Weil

Kevin Weil announced his departure on X in April.

"It's been a mind-expanding two years, from Chief Product Officer to joining the research team and starting OpenAI for Science," he said.

Weil first joined OpenAI in 2024 as its chief product officer. He later served as vice president of OpenAI for Science, an initiative to build an AI-powered platform to accelerate scientific discovery, starting in October 2025.

Currently, Weil heads an AI science startup that sought a valuation of at least $750 million.

Bill Peebles

Bill Peebles worked as a research scientist at OpenAI for three years before leaving the company in April 2026. Peebles served as the head of Sora, an AI model that uses text prompts to create videos.

"While the original Sora ignited a huge amount of investment in video across the industry, it took the next generation of models with Sora 2 for the broader public to understand the transformation happening," Peeble said on X. "I'm proud of all the sleepless nights before and after the launch this team endured in order to deploy the technology in a responsible way and help steer societal norms."

The video generation AI model first became available to users in December 2024. Nine months later, OpenAI released an updated model — Sora 2 — and an app meant to rival social media sites.

Although the app drummed up major hype, its momentum quickly faded.

OpenAI shut down Sora and its app this April.

Srinivas Narayanan

Srinivas Narayanan, OpenAI's chief technology officer for business applications, announced in April that he was leaving after three years.

"Leading the b2b engineering team has been an enormous privilege," Narayanan wrote on LinkedIn. "With the recent/upcoming product launches, this felt like the right time to step back."

Narayanan said he planned to spend time with his parents in India before deciding what to do next. He joined OpenAI as vice president of engineering and led teams working on ChatGPT and the company's enterprise products.

Kate Rouch

Kate Rouch stepped down as OpenAI's chief marketing officer in April to focus on her recovery from breast cancer.

Rouch joined OpenAI in December 2024 after more than a decade at Meta, where she served as global head of brand and product marketing. She took medical leave in 2025 while undergoing treatment, then returned to OpenAI.

OpenAI previously said Rouch could eventually return in a more narrowly defined position when her health allowed, and that the company was searching for a new chief marketing officer.

Barret Zoph

Barret Zoph left OpenAI in June, about five months after returning to lead its enterprise AI sales efforts.

Zoph initially departed OpenAI in September 2024 and cofounded Thinking Machines Lab with former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati. He returned to OpenAI in January 2026 after leaving the rival startup.

OpenAI did not disclose why Zoph left.

Chloé Bakalar

Chloé Bakalar, OpenAI's head of ethics, left the company in July, less than a year after joining.

Bakalar joined OpenAI in August 2025 after spending about six years working on responsible AI at Meta. At OpenAI, she examined questions surrounding model behavior, human relationships with AI, and whether advanced systems could warrant moral consideration.

Johannes Heidecke

Johannes Heidecke, who led OpenAI's safety systems team, left the company in July amid a reorganization of its safety operations.

Heidecke joined OpenAI in 2021 and took charge of safety systems in 2024. His team evaluated models for potentially dangerous capabilities and developed safeguards intended to prevent harmful behavior.

Following his departure, OpenAI placed its safety teams under Mia Glaese, its vice president of research and safety.

Joshua Achiam

Joshua Achiam, OpenAI's chief futurist, left the company in July after nearly nine years.

Achiam previously led OpenAI's mission alignment team, which was tasked with helping the company uphold its founding goal of ensuring that artificial general intelligence benefits humanity. OpenAI disbanded that team in early 2026 and moved Achiam into the chief futurist role.

Caitlin Kalinowski

Caitlin Kalinowski, who led OpenAI's robotics and consumer hardware team, resigned in March over concerns about the company's agreement with the Pentagon.

"Surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got," Kalinowski wrote on LinkedIn. She later said her objection was primarily about governance and that the agreement had been announced before its safeguards were fully defined.

Kalinowski joined OpenAI in November 2024 after leading Meta's augmented-reality hardware efforts, including its Orion glasses project. OpenAI said its Pentagon agreement prohibited domestic surveillance and the use of autonomous weapons.

The Good, Bad And Ugly From The Packers’ Loss To The Steelers

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@ 14/08/2026

… %!s()

Kicker Trey Smack shined.

Cornerbacks Keisean Nixon and Jaylin Simpson struggled.

And the running game and overalll deoth shiuld have everyone inside 1265 Lombardi concerned.

The Green Bay Packers dropped a 28-9 decision to host Pittsburgh Thursday in the preseason opener for both teams. The Steelers scored the final 21 points of the game, as the Packers continued their trend of struggling down the stretch.

There were a handful of positives for the Packers, but even more to clean up.

“Obviously a lot of things that we need to clean up moving forward, but I was pleased with the effort,” Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur said. “We just have to execute a little bit better and find ways to take the ball away and not give up as many explosive plays as we did.”

Is that all, coach?

Here’s the good, bad and ugly from the Packers’ loss.

THE GOOD

SMACK ATTACK: Green Bay rookie kicker Trey Smack has had a rough summer, entering the night 20-of-28 (71.4%) on all kicks. No one will ever remember that, though, if Smack keeps kicking like he did Thursday.

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Smack went 3-for-3 making kicks from 58, 38 and 37 yards. Smack also made another 58-yarder that the Packers took off the board following a Pittsburgh penalty.

“I thought Trey Smack going in there, hitting a 58 yarder … and to hit really two (58 yarders) in one game is pretty incredible,” LaFleur said. “So I thought he was definitely a bright spot for us. Yeah I mean, he went out there and delivered.”

Smack drilled a 58-yard field goal on Green Bay’s opening possession when Pittsburgh’s Dean Lowry — a former Packer — was tagged with a 15-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness. That gave Green Bay an automatic first down, so coach Matt LaFleur took the points off the board.

When Green Bay’s offense couldn't get anything going, Smack trotted back out and drilled a 37-yard field goal to give the Packers a 3-0 lead.

Just before half, Green Bay No. 3 quarterback Kyle McCord did a terrific job getting the Packers into field goal range. Smack then drilled a 57-yard field goal on the final play of the half to pull Green Bay within 7-6.

Then on the Packers’ opening drive of the second half, they drove to Pittsburgh’s 20, stalled and Smack made a 38-yarder.

“It was awesome,” Green Bay quarterback Jordan Love said of Smack’s night. “I think that was definitely the highlight of the night, him hitting, what, two 58-yard field goals. So that was awesome, making all his kicks. Happy for him. That was definitely the highlight of the night right there.”t day.”

For a young kicker who’s been under the microscope, this was the kind of outing he needed.

“I think it’ll build some confidence,” Smack said. “Every day’s a new day. You gotta figure out what kind of ball you’re gonna hit tha

QUITE A STOP: Pittsburgh put together a 15-play, 84-yard drive on its second series. The Packers came up big, though, and kept the Steelers off the scoreboard.

On a second-and-goal play, rookie cornerback Brandon Cisse made a terrific, touchdown saving tackle of running back Lew Nichols at Green Bay’s 3-yard line. On third down, wideout Germie Bernard nearly made a touchdown grab, but safety Murvin Kenion III drove him out of the endzone.

Then on fourth and goal from the 3, safety Mark Perry made a strong tackle and held tight end Pat Freiermuth to a 2-yard gain after a short reception.

MCCORD MAKES HIS MARK: Green Bay No. 3 quarterback Kyle McCord had a solid night, going 12-of-16 for 102 yards. McCord didn’t have a touchdown or an interception and finished with a 91.1 rating.

“He's starting to understand what's going on from our perspective and learning how to play with our rhythm and our tempo that we stress a lot,” Packers quarterback coach Luke Getsy said of McCord earlier this summer. “I'm excited because he’s shown jumps every single week that we go through this process.”

WHO PLAYED WHERE?: Green Bay’s No. 1 offensive line was (from left) Jordan Morgan, Jager Burton, Sean Rhyan, Jacob Monk and Anthony Belton. Rhyan left after one series, Monk moved to center and Donovan Jennings went to right guard.

Brandon Cisse and Keisean Nixon were the No. 1 corners. Warren Brinson, Karl Brooks and Jonathan Ford were the defensive tackles in base.

THIS AND THAT: On the Packers’ opening drive, quarterback Jordan Love hit wideout Jayden Reed for 19 yards on a third-and-five. … No. 3 quarterback Kyle McCord hit wideout Skyy Moore for 11 yards and a first down. … Collin Oliver made a head-turning tackle, pursuing from the backside and dropping running back Lew Nichols for no gain.

THE BAD

SIMPSON STRUGGLES: It was a brutal night for cornerback Jaylin Simpson, who’s battling to make the team.

First, Pittsburgh rookie wideout Kaden Wetjen had a 74-yard reception when he whipped Simpson off the line, then Simpson fell down. That gave Wetjen the necessary space to run away from Green Bay’s defense, before two Packers caught him at the 3-yard line.

Two plays later, Pittsburgh reserve quarterback Drew Allar had a 3-yard TD run that gave the Steelers a 14-9 lead.

“The one (play) that was the most disappointing was the 75-yarder, when we’re man coverage and the guy covering, I think it was Wetjen, falls down on the ground,” LaFleur said of Simpson. “And then he just outran us.”

On Pittsburgh’s next series, the Steelers drove deep into Green Bay territory where Wetjen beat Simpson for a 5-yard TD.

And on Pittsburgh’s final series, Simpson was hit with a 24-yard pass interference penalty against Max Hurleman. If Simpson can’t defend Pittsburgh’s backups, is there any way he could hold up if forced to play Minnesota’s Justin Jefferson or Jordan Addison in Week 1?

THAT WON’T HELP: Green Bay cornerback Keisean Nixon is fighting for his job, splitting time with free agent Benjamin St-Juste this week. Nixon didn't do himself any favors Thursday.

In the first quarter, Nixon and safety Kitan Oladapo both had dreadful missed tackles on a short pass from Mason Rudolph to Germie Bernard. That allowed the play to erupt for 25 yards.

Oladapo figures to be a bit player, at best, in 2026. Nixon, though, is trying to hold onto his starting job.

Nixon showed little interest or effort on his tackle “attempt” of Bernard. That kind of effort certainly won’t help Nixon keep his job.

NO AARON: Former Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers says he’ll retire after the season. If Rodgers is true to his word, this was his last chance to face his former team — unless the Packers and Steelers meet in the Super Bowl.

It would have been nice for Packer Nation to see Rodgers play one more time. Rodgers isn’t a fan of the preseason, though, and was held out of the game.

“What’s the value of it?,” Rodgers said of preseason games. “I don’t think it’s super high because in (2015) we lost our All-Pro wide receiver (Jordy Nelson).

“There’s not a tremendous amount of value that I see in it, but I’m not sure what the right thing to do is with that. They would probably, the league would say, ‘Well, we’ll take one (game) away if you just give us an extra regular-season game.’ ”

REMEMBER HIM?: Steelers tight end Robert Tonyan had 10 touchdowns for Green Bay in 2020. The Packers probably wish they still had him.

Green Bay’s tight end room has been decimated by injuries this summer. And on Thursday, Tonyan had a big night, finishing with four catches for 61 yards.

Late in the first half, Tonyan had impressive back-to-back catches of 16 and 15 yards to the Packers’ 1-yard line. Lew Nichols, a seventh round pick by Green Bay in 2023, then scored from 1-yard out to give the Steelers a 7-3 lead.

MISSING IN ACTION: The Packers that didn't suit up were edge rushers Micah Parsons and Dani Dennis-Sutton, running backs Josh Jacobs and Chris Brooks, safety Javon Bullard, cornerbacks Carrington Valentine, Kamal Hadden and Domani Jackson, offensive linemen Aaron Banks and Zach Bako-Bewele, tight ends Tucker Kraft and Luke Musgrave, long snapper Matt Orzech, and defensive linemen Devonte Wyatt, Javon Hargrave and Jordon Riley.

THIS AND THAT: Green Bay had just one penalty in the first half, but eight in the second half. … Will Sheppard had an opportunity for a big punt return, but ran into teammate Kitan Oladapo and immediately went down. … No. 4 quarterback Kyron Drones was dumped for a 15-yard sack loss. … Green Bay was outgained, 385-160.

THE UGLY

RUN GAME NONEXISTANT: Yes, it’s just the preseason. But the Packers have struggled both blocking and running the ball all summer, and Thursday was no different.

The Packers finished with just 63 rushing yards on 24 carries, a paltry average of just 2.6 yards per rush.

Pierre Strong’s nine yard run was the Packers’ longest of the night. And Damien Martinez led Green Bay with 20 yards on eight carries (2.5).

The Packers ranked a mediocre 15th in the league in rushing yards last season (119.8) after finishing fifth in 2024 (146.8). Green Bay has a lot of work to do to return to the level they have two years ago.

DEPTH? WHAT DEPTH?: Green Bay’s decision makers talked all offseason about how much they loved their depth. This came after the Packers suffered heavy losses after the 2025 campaign, most notably linebacker Quay Walker, wideout Romeo Doubs, guard Elgton Jenkins and quarterback Malik Willis.

Green Bay’s depth certainly looked suspect Thursday, as the Packers were outscored, 21-0, in the final 17 ½ minutes.

Granted, many of the players on the field in the second half won't make the roster. But Green Bay certainly has depth issues right now on the offensive line, at tight end, wide receiver and cornerback.

The Packers’ first regular season game is exactly one month away, and there are a handful of positions that could use reinforcements. %!s()

‘American Horror Story’ Season 13: Everything We Know

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@ 14/08/2026

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 09: (L-R) Emma Roberts, Frances Conroy, Gabourey Sidibe, Sarah Paulson, Leslie Grossman, Avantika Vandanapu and Alex Consani are seen filming "American Horror Story" in SoHo on July 09, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by TheStewartofNY/GC Images) — …

The 13th installment of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk's horror anthology series is returning — and in a big way.

August 13, 2026

Logo text

Get ready horror fans, because a new season of American Horror Story is approaching, and it brings back some of the series’ most beloved characters — and the actors who play them.

Created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, AHS first debuted in 2011 with Murder House and has since taken viewers through season two’s Asylum, season three’s Coven, season four’s Freak Show, season five’s Hotel, season six’s Roanoke, season seven’s Cult, season eight’s Apocalypse, season nine’s 1984, season 10’s Double Feature, season 11’s NYC and season 12’s Delicate.

Now, the anthology series is nearly back for season 13, with franchise favorites including Jessica Lange, Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, Emma Roberts and more stepping back into the Emmy-winning series, which has become a staple of the Murphy-verse

The season is executive produced by Murphy, Falchuk, Ned Martel, Charlie Carver, Eric Kovtun, Nissa Diederich, Scott Robertson, Tanase Popa, Crystle Roberson Dorsey, Jennifer Salt and Tim Minear. It’s produced by 20th Television.

Below, The Hollywood Reporter breaks down everything there is to know about AHS: 13 — from its new and returning castmembers to what Murphy has teased about the franchise’s future and the first official footage.

When Will Season 13 Be Released?

After AHS: 13 was originally indicated to premiere around Halloween 2026, FX set its official release date for Sept. 24 at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT on FX and Hulu. The season will include 13 half-hour episodes, with premiere week and week two each featuring three episodes. Following that, two episodes will be released each Thursday leading up to the 13th and final episode on Oct. 29.
What Is Season 13 About?

According to FX, here is the official logline: “An unrivaled 13th installment that will do justice to everyone’s most feared number. Bringing together an all-star cast, many of whom are reprising fan favorite roles, American Horror Story: 13 continues to build on the anthology’s decades-long legacy that has been streamed more than 700 million hours across the globe and spawned a legion of dedicated fans. American Horror Story has redefined the genre with various installments featuring a creepy murder house, a coven of witches, a traveling freak show, a haunted hotel and the apocalypse itself. Which iconic horrors will return to haunt the hallowed halls of 13 and what new terrors await? Light your candles, draw your pentagrams and prepare for a supreme surprise.”

Murphy recently told THR, “This season is a thank you to the fans for continuing to watch.”

He also teased to be on the lookout for certain nods to past seasons. “We also had a lot of the original costumes still in storage that we got to use,” Murphy said. “So there are little Easter eggs threaded around in the set decoration where fans can be like, ‘Wait, wasn’t that in season two?’ It was.”
Who Is Returning for Season 13?

Image Credit: Getty Images (4)

A plethora of franchise veterans are returning for AHS: 13. Find out who and which seasons they’ve previously been in below.
- Sarah Paulson: Murder House, Asylum, Coven, Freak Show, Hotel, Roanoke, Cult, Apocalypse and Double Feature
- Jessica Lange: Murder House, Asylum, Coven, Freak Show and Apocalypse
- Evan Peters: Murder House, Asylum, Coven, Freak Show, Hotel, Roanoke, Cult, Apocalypse and Double Feature
- Angela Bassett: Coven, Freak Show, Hotel, Roanoke and Apocalypse
- Kathy Bates: Coven, Freak Show, Hotel, Roanoke, Apocalypse and Double Feature
- Emma Roberts: Coven, Freak Show, Cult, Apocalypse, 1984 and Delicate
- Billie Lourd: Cult, Apocalypse, 1984 and Double Feature
- Gabourey Sidibe: Coven, Freak Show, Hotel and Apocalypse
- Leslie Grossman: Cult, Apocalypse, 1984 and Double Feature
- John Carroll Lynch: Freak Show, Hotel, Cult, Apocalypse and 1984
- Mat Fraser: Freak Show
- Mena Suvari: Murder House, Apocalypse
- Zach Villa: 1984
- Seth Gabel: Hotel
And Who Are They Playing?

Image Credit: Prashant Gupta/FX Networks/Courtesy Everett Collection; Ray Mickshaw/FX/Courtesy Everett Collection; Michele K. Short/FX Networks/Courtesy Everett Collection (2)

Over the past few months, Murphy has posted first looks of actors returning in character on his Instagram. This has included Jessica Lange as Constance Langdon (Murder House), Sarah Paulson as Cordelia Goode, aka The Supreme, (Coven) and Emma Roberts as Madison Montgomery (Coven).

Speaking with Entertainment Tonight at The Shards premiere in July, Murphy further revealed more details on the seasons’ characters brings together elements from previous seasons.

“Everybody thinks it’s a Coven season and it’s not. It’s all the seasons,” he said. “Sarah Paulson is playing six or seven roles. Jessica Lange is playing all four of her iconic characters. Evan Peters is playing five characters… It is like the Avengers. They all come together to defeat the ultimate evil.”

Perhaps the biggest surprise for fans was Lange’s return. The actress has repeatedly said to press over the years that she would not return to the show after leaving in 2015.

However, Murphy was able to convince her. He recently told THR, “It all started with Jessica [Lange] because Jessica, after we did the first four seasons, wanted to go off and do different things, which I understood completely. But I reached out to her thinking she would say no, and if she had said no, I probably wouldn’t have done it. She told me a story about how she was doing Broadway last season and she would go out after the show, and there were all of these young people who were there because they all watched her work on American Horror Story. And she was very moved by that. I said, ‘Well, that’s funny, because my idea is for you to do all four of your favorite characters.’ And she said, ‘Sign me up. I’d love to do it.’ I was so grateful.”

“Before I started writing it, I had all of them — Emma [Roberts] and Evan [Peters] and Kathy Bates; Angela Bassett and Gabourey Sidibe and Leslie Grossman,” he said, in addition to Paulson.

While promoting Murphy’s other series, The Beauty in January, Peters told THR that he was “shocked” Lange agreed to return: “Ryan knows how to have those dinners. He will get you in a second. I was definitely shocked, but thrilled, honestly.”

(See more details on character’s in the trailer section.)
Who Are the New Cast Members in ‘AHS:13’?

Image Credit: Getty Images (4)

First-time AHS actors include Paul Anthony Kelly, Alex Consani, Avantika, Madelaine Petsch, John Waters and Joey Pollari.

Kelly most recently worked with Murphy on Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, where he played JFK Jr. The 37-year-old actor appears with blonde hair in AHS: 13, as far as his character, Vogue reported that he is “the linchpin of the season.”
What Happened to Ariana Grande’s Role?

Image Credit: Monica Schipper/Getty Images

On Halloween 2025, Murphy announced on this Instagram that Ariana Grande was set to join a slew of American Horror Story veterans for season 13.

However, in July, THR confirmed that the Grammy winner had dropped out of AHS: 13 due to a scheduling conflict with her Eternal Sunshine tour.

Murphy recently spoke with THR about Grande’s exit, saying, “I love Ariana Grande. We’re great friends. I had an idea and I came to her and she, very immediately, said, ‘I’m not sure because I think I’m going on tour.’ I don’t think the tour had been announced, and she had obviously just finished the Wicked movie. So when it came time to do that episode, I called her up and she was like, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to juggle the tour with this.’ And I said, ‘OK, if you can’t, we can push to another season.’ She said, ‘Great.'”

“You have to be respectful,” he continued. “Who is busier than Ariana Grande? No one. She had told me at the time, ‘I have this album that’s dropping.’ It was really, truly a scheduling conflict. … Ariana is a big fan of horror. She’s obviously done homages of that in her work; she did Scream Queens for me and loved the experience, and people love her in that show. So I will always work with her. I love her, and I support her. It was a very big swing, but I might bring that back for another season, per Ariana’s availability.”
Has There Been a Trailer?

Image Credit: FX

A teaser trailer released Thursday, showing the franchise’s most beloved stars and characters back on screen — in addition to some of its most infamous villains. Twisty the Clown (John Carroll Lynch) from Freak Show opens the teaser, which then pans to the inside of what appeared to be a hotel, seemingly nodding to Hotel. Peters appears as Kai Anderson (Cult), Lange as Constance Langdon (Murder House), Angela Bassett as Marie Laveau and Emma Roberts as Madison Montgomery — both from Coven.

Rubber Man (Murder House), the sinister figure known to wear a skintight black latex BDSM suit, who Peters played in the first season, also appears. Kelly is seen in a bathtub with a snake, hinting that he could be a villain, while the trailer ends with Paulson as Cordelia Goode looking at herself in the mirror — which breaks. (Click here to watch the teaser trailer.)
What’s the Future of the Franchise?

With season 13 of AHS on the horizon, Ryan Murphy has no plans to slow down. Speaking with THR earlier this month for his latest show, The Shards, Murphy made clear, “Season 13 is not the end.”

“I’m working on season 14 as we speak in terms of, ‘What’s the idea?’ and ‘Who wants to be in it?'” he said.

Murphy added, “I loved doing this season because I had not directed an American Horror Story since Freak Show, I think. Not since season four. And I directed the pilot this year and I just love the process of going to all the castmembers, all of whom are very busy, and saying, ‘Hey, can we get the band back together?'”

Since starting the series in 2011, Murphy has emphasized his passion for AHS, as has FX boss John Landgraf.

“It’s a very important show in my career,” he said. “It’s something that John said, ‘As long as you want to keep making them, I’ll keep airing them.’ That’s always been the idea behind it, which is very empowering.”

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Dynatrace Pays $915 Million To Move AI Evaluation Upstream

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Dynatrace signed a definitive agreement on August 13 to acquire Arize in a cash and stock transaction valued at $915 million. Dynatrace said the deal expands its reach into the developer community. That is the part of the rationale that holds up.

… %!s()

Dynatrace was already shipping evaluation before this deal. Its AI Observability app traces gen_ai spans, scores live production responses with LLM-as-a-judge evaluators and detects drift in those scores over time. What it did not have is a position with the AI engineers who choose an evaluation harness. Those choices get made while an application is still being written, months before anything reaches an operations team.

The terms are roughly $815 million in cash plus replacement equity awards for Arize employees joining Dynatrace. The company plans to fund it from cash on hand or its existing credit facility. Co-founders Jason Lopatecki and Aparna Dhinakaran both join at closing, with Lopatecki continuing to lead the team and reporting to Rick McConnell, chief executive of Dynatrace. Closing is expected this quarter or early next, subject to regulatory review.

What Dynatrace Already Shipped

The existing product is more complete than the deal coverage suggests. In June, the company open-sourced dt-evals, a command-line tool that pulls recent gen_ai spans and scores them with an LLM judge. Results are written back as business events linked to the source trace. The documentation lists more than 10 built-in judge evaluators plus statistical drift detection against a rolling baseline of earlier scores.

That is a working production evaluation loop. It does not cover the half of the lifecycle that runs before an application has production traffic to score. Experiments, datasets, prompt iteration and pre-release evaluation sit on that side, and Arize is strongest there. The purchase buys lifecycle position rather than feature parity.

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How Arize Scores An Agent Trajectory

Arize reaches developers through Phoenix, a self-hostable tracing and evaluation project, and enterprises through the commercial AX platform. A single agent run may involve a model request, a document retrieval, several tool calls and a final response. Each operation lands as a span within a single trace. An engineer can inspect the whole trajectory rather than the final answer alone.

Evaluators then attach themselves to that telemetry. An evaluator tests whether a response stayed grounded in the retrieved context, whether the correct tool was selected or whether the task was completed at all. It can be deterministic code, a human annotation or another model acting as a judge. The output is a score against a particular rubric and evaluator, which is not the same thing as a verdict on truth.

An architectural wrinkle sits underneath all of this. Phoenix uses OpenInference as its native semantic format rather than the OpenTelemetry conventions for generative AI. Traces arriving from other libraries get translated into OpenInference so they display consistently. Arize AX now normalizes compatible gen_ai attributes into OpenInference fields during ingestion, removing the need for a client-side conversion processor. Arize treats both conventions as first-class and expects them to converge as the OpenTelemetry specification stabilizes.

Datadog And Splunk Are Already There

Datadog traces LLM and agent applications, tracks token usage and cost and supports managed and custom LLM-as-a-judge evaluations attached to individual spans. Splunk has gone further than most observability buyers realize. Its AI Agent Monitoring runs platform-side and instrumentation-side evaluations covering hallucination, bias, relevance, sentiment and toxicity. The documentation says an agent gets flagged when fewer than 80% of evaluations pass for a metric. New Relic has its own AI monitoring across models, traces, cost and performance.

The decisive difference is where the tooling decision starts. Datadog, Splunk, and Dynatrace all sell into operations and platform engineering, and their evaluation features emerged as extensions of those relationships. Arize built from the opposite end, with Phoenix as a free local project that AI engineers adopt long before a procurement conversation exists.

By the time an application reaches production, the instrumentation library, the trace schema and the evaluator definitions have already been chosen. Dynatrace is paying to be in the room when that happens.

The Gaps

Dynatrace did not disclose Arize’s revenue, which makes the multiple impossible to calculate from public information. The company guided to roughly 200 basis points of accretion to ARR growth in the coming fiscal year. It also guided to a 175 basis-point dilution in the non-GAAP operating margin, with expansion expected the year after. Reverse-engineering an Arize ARR figure from that accretion guidance does not work. The number describes an effect on Dynatrace's own growth rate, including the timing of the deal.

The base is the useful comparison here. Dynatrace reported $2.14 billion in ARR and a 29% non-GAAP operating margin for the June quarter. Against that base, it is accepting a year of margin dilution and spending close to a billion dollars while the category is still forming.

The harder problem is that the evaluations are themselves probabilistic. When one model judges whether another has hallucinated or completed a task, the monitoring system has a second model embedded in its control loop. That evaluator can disagree with a human reviewer, and it can drift when its underlying model version changes. An evaluation score behaves like a sampled quality indicator rather than an HTTP status code. Running these in production calls for versioned evaluators, held-out test sets, periodic human calibration and an explicit threshold before a score blocks a deployment.

Arize describes Phoenix as open source, and the main repository ships under the Elastic License 2.0. That license permits broad use and self-hosting. It restricts anyone from offering the software itself as a hosted or managed service, and it is not approved by the Open Source Initiative. The distinction matters to exactly the developers whose trust Dynatrace is paying for.

The Enterprise Implication

The first question for a buyer is ownership of instrumentation. Establish whether the application emits OpenInference attributes, OpenTelemetry gen_ai attributes or vendor extensions, and where the translation happens. That answer sets the cost of a future platform change.

The second question is about evaluation economics, and the answer runs counter to intuition. Arize AX lists evaluations, experiments and human annotations as unlimited across its Free, Pro and Enterprise plans, metering span volume and ingested data instead. Running an LLM judge still costs model tokens paid to the provider, and tracing the evaluator's own execution consumes the same span allowance. Model a representative agent trajectory rather than pricing the system on request counts.

The third question is ownership of the quality signal. AI engineering may own the evaluator, platform engineering the trace pipeline, operations the incident and the business unit the definition of an acceptable outcome. Merging evaluation into an observability platform does not resolve those boundaries, though it does put them on one screen for the first time.

Dynatrace is taking a calculated risk on lifecycle position rather than on features. In a category where every incumbent already has the features, position is the right thing to buy. For enterprises, whether an AI system ran and whether it produced an acceptable result are now two separate operational questions. The vendors are finally competing on the second one. %!s()

Uber partners with China's Pony.ai for 2,000 robotaxis in Europe

tags:

@ 14/08/2026

Marko Perkov | Afp | Getty Images

… %!s()

BEIJING — U.S. ride-hailing giant Uber is ramping up its global robotaxi coverage with operator Pony.ai.

The companies plan to deploy 2,000 of Pony.ai's self-driving taxis across Europe, and expand the robotaxi partnership to the Middle East, they announced Friday.

In late March, Uber and Pony.ai launched a commercial robotaxi service in Croatia's capital Zagreb — which they claim is the first in Europe.

The partnership announced Friday will roll out robotaxis to four other European cities. The companies did not name the cities or share an exact timeframe.

Having a large-enough vehicle fleet is critical for commercialization. The more cars available, the more data can be collected to demonstrate safety to regulators and boost operational efficiency. Greater availability encourages more people to use the service.

Alphabet-backed robotaxi operator Waymo is the global leader with a fleet of around 5,000 vehicles, primarily in the U.S. It is testing rides in London, and reportedly set up new entities in four major EU economies in June.

Waymo also has plans underway in Tokyo, and is engaging with officials around the world to "lay the groundwork for global operations," it said in a statement to CNBC.

Chinese rivals Baidu Apollo Go and WeRide, meanwhile, are ramping up plans and tests for operating autonomous rides in Europe.

Uber is part of many of their plans.

WeRide and Uber in June announced plans to launch Spain's first robotaxi taxi pilot in Madrid later this year. The two companies also partner in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Uber on Thursday announced its Japanese subsidiary signed an agreement with a local taxi operator to manage daily fleet operations for a test deployment of robotaxis in Tokyo later this year.

Uber's goal is "to become the world's leading commercialization platform for autonomous vehicles," CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said earlier this month, according to a FactSet earnings call transcript.

Part of that strategy is gathering "a super set of data" that it can share with its partners to accelerate autonomous vehicle development, he said.

Pony.ai is scheduled to release quarterly earnings Tuesday.

— CNBC's Lora Kolodny contributed to this report. %!s()

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Uber partners with China's Pony.ai for 2,000 robotaxis in Europe