OpenAI is closing in on its biggest acquisition to date

First-time homebuyers and those trading up for something with a little more space—you’re in good company. OpenAI is also shelling out for its biggest-ever purchase.

The Chat GPT-maker has agreed to buy AI-assisted coding tool Windsurf for ~$3 billion, per a new Bloomberg report.

• Analysts say the deal, which hasn’t yet closed, can help OpenAI establish a bigger foothold in the market for AI coding assistants—systems that can write code based on prompts in natural language.
• Google in late October said over 25% of new company code is now AI-written, while Microsoft last week pegged its share at up to 30%.

It also comes as OpenAI’s financial mission has changed

In a separate announcement Monday, OpenAI officially walked back plans to restructure as a more conventional for-profit business and committed to remaining under control of its founding nonprofit board.

OpenAI’s will also convert its for-profit arm from a "capped-profit" partnership—where investors like Microsoft are capped at 100x returns—to a public benefit corporation, which would serve both investors and a public mission (without capping profits).

The ABCs of PBCs: Public benefit corporations (PBCs) carry a legal obligation to consider profit-making and their specific public benefit mission when making business decisions. PBCs have become a standard for-profit structure for other AI giants, like Anthropic and xAI, along with many purpose driven companies like Patagonia.

• In OpenAI’s case, its legally binding public benefit mission will be “to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity.”
• The tech giant’s new structure will allow employees, investors, and the controlling nonprofit to own parts of the new PBC.

But…OpenAI’s critics—including xAI founder Elon Musk, who sued OpenAI to stop its for-profit conversion—argue the move is merely a “cosmetic restructuring” that still enables the company to convert formerly charitable assets into billions of dollars in private wealth.

Looking ahead…A lot of decision-makers still need to sign off on OpenAI’s new restructuring plan—most notably Microsoft, which has invested ~$13 billion in the tech giant to date. OpenAI is also facing a deadline of the end of this year to restructure away from its "capped-profit" partnership or risk losing out on funding from Softbank, which led a $40 billion round in late March valuing OpenAI at $300 billion.

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