Simo was CEO at Instacart, an American grocery delivery platform, before taking up the offer from OpenAI.
She further believes in the potential AI has to transform society and individuals. “If we can make intelligence accessible everywhere, affordable to everyone, and easy to understand, we can drive the biggest opportunity engine the world has ever seen and help more people live better lives,” she said.
AI for knowledge
Simo highlighted that people who use AI tutors learn twice as much as they do from human ones, enabling them to compress thousands of hours of learning into personalised insights as per the user’s pace and level of understanding.
In a 2024 OpenAI study, 90% of users said ChatGPT helped them “understand complex ideas more easily.”
“Once we put a personalised AI tutor on every topic at everyone’s fingertips, AI will close the gap between people who have the resources to learn and people who have historically been left behind,” she added.
AI in healthcare
Simo has long been passionate about AI in general and its use cases in healthcare, having suffered a chronic illness herself.
Nearly nine in 10 US adults struggle to understand and use health information, which leads to bad outcomes and more than $200 billion in avoidable healthcare costs every year.
She explained how online resources can help patients identify risks and get solutions.
“I dealt with that feeling by hiring a tutor from Stanford to teach me biology and genetics, and eventually founded a research institute focused on chronic illnesses. Needless to say, most people don’t have the resources to take such intensive measures—and with AI, they won’t have to,” she said.
On AI replacing jobs, she said, “AI won’t replace doctors, but it can finally level the playing field for patients, putting them in the driver’s seat of their own care.”
Exit from Instacart
Fidji Simo will remain Instacart’s CEO until a successor is appointed and continue to serve as chair of the board to support the leadership team.
Instacart, best known for its grocery-delivery business, has continued to benefit from strong demand. Aside from its core delivery unit, Instacart has also expanded into providing technology to supermarkets. In May, it announced that it was buying Wynshop, an ecommerce platform for US grocery chains.
On May 7, she addressed the employees at Instacart to inform them about the transition, stating that it was a hard decision.
“This was an incredibly hard decision because I love this company. We are operating incredibly well, as our last earnings results have shown. Our strategy is working, and this team is top-notch, which makes it very hard to leave,” she said.
However, she will continue in the meantime till a new CEO is announced from the existing management team.
