OpenAI applications chief Fidji Simo told staff in a meeting last week that the company needed to refocus on business customers and cut back on side projects that were becoming a distraction, as rival Anthropic makes gains with enterprise clients through AI coding tools and other white-collar applications. Simo implied the company would shift staff toward enterprise-focused products and away from consumer ones, in comments that echoed a similar “code red” declaration CEO Sam Altman made at the end of last year around ChatGPT growth. The comments came the same day OpenAI announced it was exploring a joint venture with private equity firms to sell its technology to businesses, following a report that Anthropic was pursuing a similar JV with Blackstone and other PE firms.
