Sam Altman’s OpenAI spends $4 billion to create new company, acquires AI consulting firm to …

OpenAI is making a multi-billion dollar bet to bring artificial intelligence (AI) in the heart of corporate operations. On Monday (May 11), the creator of ChatGPT announced that it is establishing a new entity called OpenAI Deployment Company, backed by an initial $4 billion investment. OpenAI is also acquiring Tomoro, a specialised AI consulting firm, to give the new unit immediate scale and expertise.According to the announcement, OpenAI Deployment Company will embed specialised engineers directly into partner organisations. These experts will work side-by-side with corporate teams to identify exactly where “frontier AI” can have impact on productivity and innovation.“Today we’re launching the OpenAI Deployment Company to help businesses build and deploy AI. It's majority-owned and controlled by OpenAI. It brings together 19 leading investment firms, consultancies, and system integrators to help organizations deploy frontier AI to production for business impact,” OpenAI said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).Meanwhile, the acquisition of Tomoro will bring roughly 150 experienced AI deployment specialists into the fold from day one. “We’ve also agreed to acquire Tomoro, which will bring 150 experienced Forward Deployed Engineers and Deployment Specialists to the OpenAI Deployment Company from day one,” OpenAI added. OpenAI’s move comes as the “Enterprise AI” war heat up. While OpenAI has seen massive success with consumers, its rival Anthropic has gained significant ground in the business world with its Claude family of models. By creating a dedicated company focused solely on deployment, OpenAI appears to aim to ensure its technology is deeply integrated into the infrastructure of the world's largest industries.This also makes sense for the ChatGPT-maker because for most companies, the challenge is knowing how to use it safely and effectively at a large scale. By providing both the models and the experts to install them, OpenAI is attempting to become an important part of businesses.