According to The Wall Street Journal, the ChatGPT maker told staff late last week that new employees will no longer need to wait six months before their equity begins to vest.
The change, announced internally by applications chief Fidji Simo, is intended to reduce risk for recruits who might otherwise worry about being let go before seeing any return on their stock awards.
Until recently, OpenAI had already been more generous than most of Silicon Valley, cutting the traditional 12-month vesting cliff to six months earlier this year.
The move highlights the extraordinary pressure AI companies face as they compete for a relatively small pool of elite researchers and engineers.
Rivals including Meta, Google, Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI have been offering eye-watering pay packages, with total compensation in some cases reportedly exceeding $100 million.
In that environment, conventional retention tools have become less effective.
OpenAI is already spending heavily to stay competitive, as investor documents seen earlier this year indicate the company expects to spend around $6 billion on stock-based compensation in 2025 - close to half of its projected revenue.
That supposed level of spending has drawn quiet concern from some investors, who worry it will dilute returns, but executives appear to see little alternative as the battle for talent intensifies.
The decision mirrors similar moves elsewhere, as xAI is understood to have shortened its own vesting requirements in recent months after struggling to persuade candidates to join amid high-profile departures and reputational challenges.
Meta, meanwhile, has been aggressively recruiting from OpenAI, prompting the company to issue one-off bonuses worth millions of dollars to some senior staff over the summer.
By removing the vesting cliff entirely, OpenAI is sending a clear signal to prospective hires: it is willing to rewrite long-standing compensation norms to attract and retain the people it believes are essential to staying ahead in AI development.
Whether the strategy proves sustainable - financially or culturally - is a question that investors and competitors will be watching closely.
