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- OpenAI acquires Tomoro to help found the DeployCo, with a $4 billion initial investment
- Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) will be embedded within customer enterprises
- We already know that enterprises make up 40% of OpenAI's revenue
OpenAI has launched an enterprise-focused consultancy arm called OpenAI Deployment Company (DeployCo) in a bid to help business customers actually implement AI at scale, rather than just experimenting with it.
It comes from the acquisition of UK-based AI consultancy firm Tomoro, which sees around 150 AI engineers and deployment specialists move over to the new Deployment Company.
"It will launch with more than $4 billion of initial investment," OpenAI declared, which will help establish DeployCo as its own standalone business unit, despite OpenAI retaining a majority ownership and control.
OpenAI Deployment Company
Under the new scheme, the ChatGPT maker will embed frontier AI engineers and experts inside customer organizations to identify the workflows where AI could deliver the best gains. They'll be known as Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs).
OpenAI sees the positioning of DeployCo as an important one – FDEs have visibility across both the future of where frontier AI capabilities are heading, and experience in helping companies execute large-scale transformations.
"AI is becoming capable of doing increasingly meaningful work inside organizations," Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser commented. "The challenge now is helping companies integrate these systems into the infrastructure and workflows that power their businesses."
The launch of DeployCo shows a much bigger appetite for enterprise business, with the company not only rivalling AI competitors like Anthropic but also traditional software vendors like Microsoft and Google.
In an earlier post, the company noted that so-called 'frontier firms' now use 3.5x more AI per worker than typical firms – up from 2x last year. OpenAI sees a "move from chat-based assistance to delegated work with agents," and so launching DeployCo FDEs to help enterprises redesign workflows and tightly integrate AI makes a lot of sense.
The company also previously shared that enterprises make up 40% of its revenue – a proportion that's only expected to grow.
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