Archive · 23 Aug 2026
OpenAI Economist Details Skills Needed for AI Research Jobs
OpenAI has a team that studies how artificial intelligence changes the economy.
Ronnie Chatterji leads this team.
The researchers examine how AI affects workers and jobs.
They also study how businesses use AI and change their organisations.
Another focus is what very advanced AI could mean for the economy.
Chatterji says the team’s questions can change quickly as AI improves.
New team members need strong analysis skills and must be comfortable without simple answers.
They also need to work well with others and think independently about which problems matter most.
The team includes people with backgrounds in economics, data science, business, teaching and government.
Ronnie Chatterji said OpenAI’s economic research team studies AI’s effects on workers, businesses, institutions and the wider economy.
The team focuses on current job impacts, business adoption and restructuring, and the economic implications of increasingly advanced AI systems.
Chatterji said the team’s research priorities can change quickly as AI develops, including emerging topics such as recursive self-improvement.
Applicants must combine rigorous economic analysis with adaptability, independent thinking and comfort with uncertain questions.
OpenAI’s roughly dozen-person team collaborates with governments and universities and is seeking additional hires.
- Who
- Ronnie Chatterji and OpenAI’s economic research team.
- What
- OpenAI is hiring researchers to study AI’s effects on jobs, businesses and the economy.
- When
- Chatterji joined OpenAI in 2024; the hiring comments were reported on Saturday local time.
- Where
- At OpenAI, with the team also collaborating with governments and universities.
- Why
- The team is expanding its research as AI develops rapidly and creates new economic questions.
- Team leader
- Ronnie Chatterji, OpenAI’s chief economist
- Team size
- Roughly a dozen people
- Research focus
- AI’s effects on jobs, business adoption and restructuring, and advanced AI’s economic implications
- Desired skills
- Analytical rigor, flexibility, collaboration and independent thinking
- Work style
- Researchers identify important questions rather than following only a predetermined agenda
- Emerging topic
- Recursive self-improvement, in which AI systems become capable of improving themselves
- Previous roles
- Chatterji worked in policymaking and academia, including the Biden administration’s CHIPS programme and the United States Department of Commerce