AI-agent startup Kairos Computer co-founders Samarth Patel and Manas Bam have joined OpenAI as members of its technical staff, bringing experience building AI systems that perform tasks autonomously on computers.
The San Francisco-based Kairos Computer developed software aimed at acting as a "virtual intern," allowing AI agents to navigate websites and business software and complete repetitive, multi-step tasks on behalf of users.
Bam joined OpenAI in July 2026 after serving as Kairos Computer’s co-founder and CEO for roughly 10 months. His career has spanned AI startups and technical roles across the U.S., India and Singapore.
Before Kairos Computer, Bam worked as a member of the technical staff at a stealth startup where he helped build self-driving shopping technology with AI pioneer Sebastian Thrun. He also held technical roles at AI companies Delphi and Sarvam AI, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Patel joined OpenAI in August 2026 and is working on Codex and ChatGPT, according to his LinkedIn profile. He previously served as Kairos Computer’s co-founder and CTO after joining the company in April 2025.
Before co-founding Kairos Computer, Patel spent six months as a software engineer at Delphi, where he built multimodal AI features for a digital cloning platform. He previously worked at Google, where he helped launch new YouTube advertising formats and worked on technology to measure brand lift for advertisers.
Earlier in his career, he founded a startup through the University of Toronto’s Hatchery that built an app allowing merchants to accept tap-to-pay payments directly through their phones.
The hires underscore OpenAI’s continued push to bring in engineers and founders with experience building AI agents capable of taking actions on users’ behalf, rather than simply generating text or answering questions.
The ChatGPT marker named Dali Rajic as chief revenue officer, putting him in charge of the company’s worldwide sales and revenue efforts as enterprise adoption of AI picks up speed.
Last month, the Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT)-backed company rehired Lilian Weng to lead a new research team focused on accelerating the company’s internal AI research. The team will focus on research into recursive self-improvement, a process where AI systems improve their own capabilities through repeated iterations.
Liz Wamai was brought on in June as head of recruiting after spending more than three years at Netflix, as well as former Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER) India and South Asia President Prabhjeet Singh, as its managing director for the country.
White House artificial intelligence adviser Dean Ball also joined OpenAI in a role focused on shaping frontier AI policy.
OpenAI may be pushing back its public debut as it weighs whether market conditions can support its reported goal of a $1 trillion valuation. The company confidentially filed draft IPO paperwork with U.S. regulators last month, but subsequent reports suggest it could wait until 2027 before going public.
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