Sam Altman appoints Dylan Scandrett as OpenAI’s Head of Preparedness amid push toward more powerful models

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Tuesday announced that Dylan Scandrett has joined the company as its Head of Preparedness, a new role that focuses on risk mitigation as the artificial intelligence (AI) company moves toward developing more advanced models.

In a post on X, Altman said he was excited to welcome Scandrett, noting that “things are about to move quite fast” as OpenAI works with “extremely powerful models”. Altman added that such progress would require “commensurate safeguards” to ensure the company continues to deliver benefits responsibly.



“Dylan will lead our efforts to prepare for and mitigate these severe risks,” Altman wrote, terming him as “by far the best candidate” for the position. “He has his work cut out for him for sure, but I will sleep better tonight,” he added.

While OpenAI has previously formed internal safety and policy teams, the new preparedness role appears to take on the responsibility of assessing and responding to potential high‑impact risks from frontier AI systems.

The company has also been in legal trouble recently for its safety mechanisms, which puts this move into perspective. The latest example was in December, when OpenAI and its largest financial backer, Microsoft, were sued in California state court over claims that ChatGPT encouraged a mentally ill man to kill his mother and himself.

Separately, OpenAI recently announced the return of three high-profile researchers to its team. Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz rejoined the company, following a brief stint at former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati's AI startup, Thinking Machines.