OpenAI is distributing $1 million each to 14 independent think tanks and policy organizations across the US, Europe, Brazil, Singapore, and South Korea to research artificial intelligence's economic and societal impact and develop policy solutions.
The funding reflects OpenAI's view that democracies need independent research to shape how AI is deployed and ensure its benefits are widely shared rather than concentrated.
Recipients span the political spectrum, from conservative to liberal institutions, and will tackle issues ranging from workforce disruption to designing new benefit systems suited to an AI economy.
What happened
OpenAI announced winners of its grant program to study artificial intelligence's economic and societal effects. The 14 selected projects, spread across the US, Europe, Brazil, Singapore, and South Korea, will each receive $1 million in funding plus up to $1 million in credits to use OpenAI's models. Recipients include the American Enterprise Institute, Progressive Policy Institute, Tax Foundation, and Nuclear Threat Initiative.
Why it matters
OpenAI is funding independent research organizations across the political spectrum to develop policy solutions for AI's workforce disruption and unequal benefits distribution. Chris Lehane, OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, framed this as necessary for democracies to shape how AI is deployed, positioning think tanks as "laboratories of democracy" to ensure AI's gains reach broadly rather than concentrate among a few.
What to watch
The specific projects underscore OpenAI's stated priority areas—the American Enterprise Institute and Urban Institute joint effort will examine AI's impact on the American workforce, while the Progressive Policy Institute will design a new "person-based benefits system" for the AI economy.
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OpenAI's grant program represents a deliberate effort to outsource policy research on AI's societal impact to independent institutions rather than develop those ideas entirely in-house. By selecting recipients from across the political spectrum and geographic regions, OpenAI is signaling that solutions to AI's disruptions—workforce displacement, unequal wealth concentration, regulatory uncertainty—require broad buy-in across ideological and national boundaries. The funding structure, combining cash grants with model credits, also embeds OpenAI's tools into the research infrastructure these organizations will use, potentially shaping how they study the technology.
Chris Lehane's framing—that "democracies need to decide how AI is deployed"—implicitly acknowledges that OpenAI itself cannot or should not unilaterally shape that outcome. By funding think tanks as "laboratories of democracy," OpenAI is positioning itself as a funder of civic deliberation rather than a sole architect of AI policy. Whether this sufficiently distances OpenAI's commercial interests from the research outcomes remains an open question for observers of corporate influence on policy research.
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