OpenAI is expanding into high-ticket consulting, offering AI customization services starting at $10M to large companies and government agencies. Through a team of “forward deployed engineers,” OpenAI is offering to help clients fine-tune GPT-4o using proprietary data and build tailored applications that can solve problems specific to their needs, effectively creating their own custom ChatGPT portals.
The consulting service already has buyers including large software firms and governments, according to The Information sources, with some clients agreeing to spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars over multiple years.
OpenAI formed a dedicated consulting team earlier this year and has since hired around a dozen people for it, including several who previously worked at Palantir. A source told The Information that the goal of the division is to figure out whether OpenAI can develop technology that an enterprise customer would be willing to pay $1B or more for.
The move puts OpenAI in competition with software firms like Palantir and consulting firms like Accenture, as well as smaller AI startups focused on applying AI to specific fields.
OpenAI's custom consulting model has been in the works for quite some time:
- Two years ago the company built a chatbot for Morgan Stanley financial advisers to answer their questions using the bank's proprietary research and data.
- Last year it helped Grab fine-tune a specialized version of its GPT-4o Vision model to automate the work of creating maps of countries across SEA using hundreds of street-level images that Grab's delivery drivers captured with 360-degree cameras.
- Most recently, OpenAI won a $200M contract to build a custom AI product for the U.S. Department of Defense, which will incorporate its data and use it to plan war-fighting strategies.
OpenAI Chief Commercial Officer Giancarlo Lionetti said that offering access to the company's engineers is one of the reason's enterprises want to work directly with OpenAI.
The hybrid model of offering a product + consulting has worked for many tech companies in the past including Palantir, Salesforce, SAP, Red Hat, IBM, and countless others. More close to home, Klaviyo recently launched a consulting-style offering called “Klaviyo Professional Services,” which directly offers consultation and support services to clients rather than relying solely on agency partners. The model allows a company to drive revenue from both their platform and through higher-margin services that are in demand.
The real question is — will Meta copy the model?