OpenAI is diving headfirst into the high-touch world of consulting.
However this isn’t your typical enterprise gross sales play. OpenAI is constructing a full-blown consulting arm staffed with its personal engineers, designed to ship fine-tuned, enterprise-grade AI techniques.
And it’s not low cost: The minimal spend to get within the door? $10 million.
This new initiative places OpenAI in direct competitors with giants like Accenture and Palantir. And it might reshape how corporations undertake AI.
What does this imply for enterprise leaders?
I obtained the inside track from Advertising AI Institute founder and CEO Paul Roetzer on Episode 157 of The Synthetic Intelligence Present.
A Palantir-Impressed Technique
This isn’t a bolt-from-the-blue shock. As AI turns into extra succesful, companies more and more need bespoke options tailor-made to their proprietary knowledge and workflows. That’s the place OpenAI steps in: fine-tuning fashions like GPT-4o, constructing customized functions, and embedding them immediately into enterprise processes.
The mannequin carefully mirrors Palantir’s method, particularly its use of “ahead deployed engineers,” or technical consultants who embed inside consumer organizations to ship tailor-made options. OpenAI has quietly been assembling its personal FDE workforce, together with expertise poached immediately from Palantir.
And the early outcomes? Spectacular. OpenAI has already secured a $200 million contract with the Pentagon and struck a cope with Southeast Asia’s Seize to make use of GPT-4o Imaginative and prescient for mapping regional roadways from 360-degree avenue imagery.
Proudly owning the Consequence
Roetzer sees this as a logical, if daring, transfer. He likened OpenAI’s technique to what he skilled constructing certainly one of HubSpot’s first companion businesses.
Again in 2007, HubSpot prevented constructing an inside companies workforce, figuring out that top service income might decrease its valuation forward of an IPO. However over time, they realized outsourcing led to inconsistent outcomes. Ultimately, they needed to get extra concerned to make sure higher onboarding, adoption, and buyer success.
The identical forces could also be pushing OpenAI inward. And there are three large ones doubtlessly behind this evolution, says Roetzer:
Income progress. Companies imply extra predictable income—and doubtlessly a multi-billion-dollar enterprise line nearly in a single day.
High quality management. When OpenAI handles fine-tuning immediately, it ensures fashions are correctly built-in and ship the very best worth.
Efficiency strain. The higher the implementation, the upper the shopper satisfaction and retention. And that requires experience.
The upside? Large. Roetzer speculates that OpenAI’s consulting arm might be a $5–10 billion enterprise proper out of the gate, and doubtlessly develop to $50–100 billion yearly if it scales.
A New Consulting Empire?
However there’s a catch. Companies aren’t practically as scalable or worthwhile as software program. You want human consultants. You want infrastructure. And if OpenAI ever plans to go public, heavy service income might weigh on its valuation, similar to it could have for HubSpot in its early days.
Nonetheless, Roetzer argues, the attract is apparent.
“That is an age-old difficulty the place the creator of the product needs extra management and believes they’ll drive larger efficiency, adoption, utilization, retention, and worth creation in the event that they’re extra concerned,” he says.
If OpenAI can show its mannequin with just a few key shoppers—and all indicators recommend it’s already doing so—it might quickly broaden right into a consulting behemoth. That may place it squarely within the aggressive crosshairs of not simply Palantir and Accenture, but in addition rising startups and cloud giants providing customized AI instruments.
In case you’re an enterprise making an attempt to deploy AI, count on a brand new wave of competitors: for expertise, for vendor entry, and for strategic benefit.
OpenAI’s consulting transfer indicators a transparent message: The longer term isn’t nearly higher AI fashions. It’s about who will get to form them, who will get early entry, and who owns the implementation.
And in that world, $10 million could be the worth of admission.
