Accelerating To-B sales! OpenAI is hiring hundreds of AI consultants

OpenAI is significantly expanding its enterprise services team, planning to hire hundreds of technical consultants to help large companies develop customized AI applications and automate employee tasks. This move aims to strengthen its competitiveness in the enterprise market and counter major rival Anthropic’s push in the enterprise services sector. According to a report by The Information on Friday, sources revealed that OpenAI is expanding its frontier deployment engineering team—specialized engineers capable of customizing OpenAI models with clients’ own data. The company currently has about 60 such engineers, as well as more than 200 technical customer success team members, with a total staff of approximately 4,000. This round of hiring coincides with OpenAI’s upcoming new enterprise product that will integrate all aspects of AI usage needs for businesses. Strengthening its enterprise customer base may help it win investors’ favor—sources say the company’s executives have had informal talks with banks and law firms about a possible IPO as soon as the fourth quarter this year. With these initiatives, OpenAI aims to raise enterprise customer revenue share from about 40% in January to 50% by the end of the year, and reach approximately $15 billion in enterprise income by 2026. ## Expanding Consultancy Team in the Style of Palantir OpenAI is following Palantir’s successful model, which achieved rapid growth by helping clients revamp backend systems and implement AI. These technical consultants can develop AI customer response systems for T-Mobile or assist Intuit in providing tax preparation services to clients. The company has long hired technical staff to help businesses implement AI, but last year began significantly accelerating the recruitment of such specialized engineers. These engineers will be responsible for implementing OpenAI’s new enterprise product and designing practical AI solutions for large corporate clients. ## Accelerating Enterprise Partnerships OpenAI has recently been advancing enterprise collaborations intensively. This week, the company signed a multi-year agreement worth $200 million with Snowflake to integrate OpenAI’s models into the database management company’s application building service, and to provide its employees with ChatGPT Enterprise. Additionally, OpenAI has been in talks with Amazon about special business arrangements, enabling its researchers and engineers to help customize AI for products like Alexa. The company also announced expanded partnerships with major consulting firms such as Accenture, Bain, Boston Consulting, and Slalom. Currently, OpenAI has signed multi-year agreements valued at least $100 million each with seven clients, and at least $75 million with six others, with the potential to grow above $100 million. These agreements typically include staff ChatGPT subscriptions, API access to AI models, and support for building applications or AI agents. ## Competing with Anthropic in the Enterprise Market Rival Anthropic is also making moves in enterprise services. The company supports business clients with so-called application AI engineers, collaborates with consulting firms like Cognizant, Accenture, and Deloitte, and provides on-site support via cloud providers such as Amazon. Anthropic projected last December that it would reach $1.8 billion in revenue by the end of this year, with most coming from selling AI model access to developers and enterprises. Investment bankers advising on its IPO say Anthropic is expected to list either later this year or early next year. Risk Warning and Disclaimer The market carries risks, and investments should be made cautiously. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and has not taken into account individual users’ specific investment goals, financial situation, or needs. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article suit their circumstances. Investment decisions made accordingly are at your own risk.