OpenAI acquires artificial intelligence design studio Global Illumination

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind the ChatGPT viral chatbot, has acquired Global Illumination, a New York-based startup that uses artificial intelligence to build creative tools, infrastructure and digital experiences.

This is the first public acquisition of OpenAI in almost seven years.

“We are very excited about the impact they will have here on OpenAI,” the OpenAI press office wrote. "The entire team has joined OpenAI to work on our core products including ChatGPT."

Launched by Thomas Dimson, Taylor Gordon and Joey Flynn, Global Illumination has been involved in a number of projects since its founding in 2021. Backed by venture capital firms Paradigm, Benchmark, and Slow, the Global Illumination team designed and built early products for Instagram and Facebook, as well as YouTube, Google, Pixar, and Riot Games.

As the CTO of Instagram, Dimson has been instrumental in iterating the platform's discovery algorithms.

Global Illumination's latest creation is Biomes, an open source Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game similar to Minecraft.