Friday, August 14, 2026

OpenAI swaps chief revenue officer amid executive departures

Good morning.

Lululemon’s AI ambitions just lost their pace-setter. Ranju Das, the athleisure giant’s first-ever chief AI and technology officer, is exiting after less than a year on the job, Bloomberg reports.

Das joined last September with the swagger of a 20-year tech vet—stints running Amazon AI Services and CEO’ing OptumLabs and Swan AI Studios—to lead Lululemon’s “next phase” of AI strategy.

He’s now out the door seemingly before that phase really got moving.

Das’ departure also coincides awkwardly with former Lululemon tech chief Julie Averill’s torching of the “Chief AI Officer” title concept in a viral New York Times op-ed, arguing companies are slapping “AI” on job titles as a substitute for an actual strategy.

Here’s what else happened in tech today.

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Executive shake-up continues at OpenAI

Sam Altman stands in front of microphones in a suit

OpenAI is replacing chief revenue officer Denise Dresser, who is leaving less than a year into the role, with Dali Rajic, the former president and COO of Wiz.

Dresser, the former CEO of Slack, is the latest senior executive leaving the ChatGPT maker in recent weeks. Earlier this week, Brad Lightcap, who served as COO for four years, announced that he was leaving. And in July, Fidji Simo, said she was stepping back from her role as OpenAI's "CEO of AGI deployment" to focus on her health.

The reshuffle comes as OpenAI works towards a highly anticipated IPO, expected sometime next year, and as competition between OpenAI and Anthropic heats up. Rajic now takes over OpenAI's sales organization at a pivotal moment for the company's revenue push. —Lily Mae Lazarus

Microsoft moves toward "one Copilot"

Microsoft has started merging its consumer and enterprise Copilot apps this week, rolling out a unified experience to a small subset of users as the first step toward a long-planned "super app." Some consumer features are getting cut in the process—Copilot Podcasts, Group Chat, and Deep Research all disappear starting Aug. 18—and the Microsoft 365 app is being rebranded as "Microsoft Copilot."

This is the opening move in a project Fortune first reported in May.

CEO Satya Nadella confirmed the plan on Microsoft's July earnings call, saying the company would bring Copilot's chat, Cowork, and Autopilot experiences together this quarter as it races to keep pace with Anthropic and OpenAI. —Sebastian Herrera

Apple doubles down on Texas manufacturing

Apple opened its new advanced manufacturing center in Houston, Texas this week, a 20,000-square-foot training facility offering free courses to small and medium-sized businesses on smart manufacturing techniques like machine-learning-driven quality control. CEO Tim Cook said the company has invested "hundreds of millions of dollars" into the Houston facility in under nine months, standing up a factory that has already shipped its first AI servers.

The site will also begin producing the Mac mini later this year, marking the first time that product has been made in the U.S.

The opening drew a heavy political presence, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, underscoring the facility's role in Apple's broader $600 billion U.S. investment pledge made last year. —Lily Mae Lazarus

More tech

—Databricks raised $5 billion at a $190 billion valuation in a strategic round led by Coatue.

—Chinese AI startup DeepSeek plans a “significant” price hike across its API services, reversing its ultra-low-cost positioning finance.

—IBM struck a strategic partnership with OpenAI to co-sell industry-specific AI solutions and bake OpenAI models deeper into IBM’s enterprise stack.

—A new case study on Chinese media and AI finds that state-controlled news in training data nudges models toward more pro–Chinese government answers on sensitive topics.

—Surveillance firm Flock Safety is tightening guardrails on its AI camera system after backlash, making abnormal-activity flags and stricter data-retention limits mandatory for police customers.

—ICE is preparing to spend up to $20 million on G.L.O.V.E electric shock gloves.