{
  "id": 9613998,
  "title": "OpenAI Brings in Patreon’s Founders to Build a Creator Business",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/24/openai-brings-in-patreons-founders-to-build-a-creator-business",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-24T19:22:07.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "PYMNTS",
    "slug": "pymnts",
    "url": "https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/openai-brings-in-patreons-founders-to-build-a-creator-business/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "OpenAI has acquired Patreon founders Sam Yam and his team, including Drew Rowny and Shannon Ma, in order to create a creator business, according to The Information. Yam will lead a new division called Creator Product. The team's goal is to build tools for creators to use and share early access to. OpenAI's previous creator products focused on output, such as chat completion, image generation, and video generation. However, none of these products touched on the aspect of a creator's business that Patreon focuses on: recurring revenue from fans. Patreon has over 300,000 creators and 10 million monthly paying fans, with creators earning more than $10 billion since 2013. The hires reflect OpenAI's efforts to generate revenue from its free users, which currently make up most of its base. With ad revenue from over 1 billion users weekly, creators present a natural next step. OpenAI is trying to stay competitive in the creator economy, which is expected to reach $480 billion by 2027, with brand deals making up a significant portion of creator income.",
  "summary": "OpenAI has hired the people who built the largest membership business in the creator economy. Patreon Co-Founder Sam Yam is joining to lead a new division called Creator Product, The Information reported. He is bringing Drew Rowny, Patreon’s former head of product, and Shannon Ma, its former head of engineering. Yam wrote on X that […] The post OpenAI Brings in Patreon’s Founders to Build a…",
  "key_points": [
    "OpenAI acquires Patreon founders Sam Yam and team",
    "New Creator Product division aims to build creator business tools",
    "Patreon's 300k creators and 10M monthly fans generate $10B revenue"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}