OpenAI, Microsoft back $500 million effort to help workers adapt to AI

OpenAI and Microsoft joined a new bipartisan effort to help American workers adjust to artificial intelligence even as their products help drive the disruption. The nonprofit, called RAISE US, launched Thursday with more than $500 million in multiyear commitments and a stated goal of reaching $1 billion.

Gina Raimondo, the former commerce secretary, is leading the group as chief executive and board chair alongside former Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb. The initiative is designed to test workforce ideas in a small set of states before trying to scale what works nationally, a model that gives it measurable funding but leaves the key performance tests, including job placements and training outcomes, to be proven in the field.

The first-year pilots are expected to focus on Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland and Utah. Among the ideas under consideration are expanding service-year opportunities in health care or education and updating unemployment insurance so laid-off workers can start businesses with AI. Governors from both parties have already lined up behind the effort, including Maryland’s Wes Moore, Arkansas’s Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Utah’s Spencer Cox and Connecticut’s Ned Lamont.

The donor base reaches well beyond the four headline tech names. Anthropic, OpenAI, Amazon and Microsoft signed on as founding partners, alongside Bank of America, General Motors, Eli Lilly and major philanthropists. The board brings together labor, finance and politics as well, with AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler, Blackstone chief executive Stephen Schwarzman, philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and former House Speaker Paul Ryan. Janet Foutty, a former Deloitte executive, is joining as president of corporate partnerships.

That lineup underscores the credibility gap at the center of the announcement. Raimondo has said the employers and chief executives she speaks with are worried about the social consequences of rapid AI-driven job disruption, including the risk of high unemployment and broader unrest. Holcomb has said the group wants to move before a crisis hits. For now, the tangible commitments are the money, the states and the pilot concepts; the political test is whether those inputs produce training, placement and business-creation results at a scale large enough to matter.

Microsoft’s role carries added weight because of its deepening business ties with OpenAI. On April 27, 2026, Microsoft said it had amended its partnership with OpenAI so OpenAI products would ship first on Azure while OpenAI could also serve customers across other clouds, a sign that the companies backing workforce adaptation are also tightening their commercial alliance.