Full Push for Enterprise AI Deployment! Following Microsoft, OpenAI Establishes "FDE Company"

OpenAI is betting on the enterprise market with unprecedented intensity. The AI giant has recently established an independent service company and invested in a partner network, aiming to bridge the vast gap between AI model capabilities and practical enterprise applications, thereby consolidating its position in the increasingly competitive enterprise AI race.

According to a Friday report by The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI recently launched two major initiatives: first, the establishment of an independent service company, OpenAI Deployment Co. (referred to as DeployCo), which deploys Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) to enterprise clients;

second, a $150 million investment in a newly created enterprise partner network, bringing in top-tier consulting firms such as Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bain, and Accenture to assist with sales and implementation. DeployCo has secured $4 billion in financing led by TPG, with participation from Advent, Bain Capital, Brookfield, and other institutions.

These moves come against the backdrop of the enterprise market becoming a key pillar for OpenAI to achieve its revenue targets, support high infrastructure investments, and ultimately meet public market expectations. However, many large enterprises still struggle to translate access to AI models into practical applications integrated into daily operations. This gap is the core issue OpenAI aims to address with its current strategy.

DeployCo: Starting with Acquisitions, FDE Team Expands to Hundreds

DeployCo was officially established in May this year, starting with the acquisition of AI consulting and engineering firm Tomoro, which brought in approximately 150 engineers. Subsequently, OpenAI acquired application AI company Northslope, expanding the total number of FDEs to hundreds. Additionally, some members of OpenAI's internal FDE team will be temporarily seconded to DeployCo to support its scaled expansion.

DeployCo is currently screening its initial batch of customers and will prioritize enterprises with long-standing relationships with OpenAI. The company will remain majority-controlled by OpenAI and operate as part of the OpenAI ecosystem.

Arnaud Fournier, Chief Technology Officer of DeployCo, previously led an FDE team of over 100 people at OpenAI for four years. He stated, “The gap between model capabilities and how people actually use them has never been wider.”

Implementation Case: Helping BBVA Increase Credit Risk Tool Accuracy from 60% to 80%

Spanish bank Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) is one of the early beneficiaries of OpenAI's FDE program and a founding partner of DeployCo.

Fran Martínez López, Head of Risk Transformation at BBVA, stated that an OpenAI engineer helped the bank build an AI application for credit risk analysis—a project his team had been independently advancing for several months. The FDE provided BBVA with a completely new construction approach, including introducing a set of AI agents specifically designed to evaluate and audit the outputs of other AI agents, ultimately raising the tool's accuracy from less than 60% to 80%.

“They told us: this is how you build such solutions, this is how you use this technology,” said López.

Colin Jarvis, head of the internal FDE program at OpenAI, introduced that the collaboration cycle between FDEs and enterprises ranges from several months to several years, depending on the depth of the project. It can cover various stages from proof of concept to full deployment, with individual teams typically embedding one to five FDEs.

Behind the $4 Billion Financing: Betting on a Hundreds-of-Billions-Dollar Enterprise AI Services Market

DeployCo's $4 billion financing round was led by TPG, with Advent, Bain Capital, and Brookfield serving as co-founding partners. B Capital, BBVA, Emergence Capital, Goanna, Goldman Sachs, SoftBank, Warburg Pincus, and WCAS are founding partners.

Peter McGoohan, Partner at TPG, stated, “We believe the addressable market size for AI services will eventually reach hundreds of billions of dollars. We are addressing the fundamental issues existing in the current enterprise AI adoption process.”

This strategy is not unique to OpenAI. Anthropic announced its own partner program in March this year, featuring an FDE service called the "Applied AI Team." Microsoft and Amazon have also recently announced their respective FDE-related plans.

Consulting Giants Enter the Fray: Beyond FDEs, Change Management Is Equally Critical

The FDE model is not a panacea. Arun Chandrasekaran, Vice President and Analyst at Gartner, pointed out that although AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic possess technical strength, “they do not have direct channels to communicate with boards of directors and C-suite executives, nor can they engage in deep communication regarding digital transformation and business transformation.”

In response, OpenAI stated that the company frequently communicates with corporate boards regarding AI transformation strategies.

To compensate for this shortfall, OpenAI invested $150 million in its new partner network, bringing in consulting firms such as BCG, Bain, and Accenture to jointly promote enterprise implementation. Vikas Taneja, Global Head of Partnerships and Alliances at BCG, stated that the core advantage of consulting partners lies in helping enterprises handle broader organizational challenges such as change management.

Colleen Kapase, Vice President of Global Partnerships and Ecosystem at OpenAI, stated, "Transforming cutting-edge models and products into real business value requires a trusted partner ecosystem."