The AI race is heating up — even between business partners.
OpenAI leaders, including chief executive Sam Altman, have reportedly hosted hundreds of top business executives this month to pitch enterprise AI services — including to customers of Microsoft, which has invested billions into the ChatGPT-maker. Altman led events in San Francisco, New York, and London, and spoke to over 100 executives, including those in finance and healthcare, in each city, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Altman and chief operating officer Brad Lightcap demonstrated products to executives at each event, including ChatGPT Enterprise — a corporate-level version of the viral chatbot that launched in August. They also demonstrated application programming interface (API) software, along with the company’s new Sora text-to-video model, Reuters reported. OpenAI told executives that customer data from ChatGPT Enterprise would not be used to train AI models, and that 92% of Fortune 500 companies already use the consumer version of the chatbot.
Some executives reportedly asked why they should pay for OpenAI’s enterprise service if they already pay for Microsoft’s service, to which Altman and Lightcap responded paying for ChatGPT Enterprise would give them direct access to the OpenAI team, the company’s latest models, and customized AI products, people at the events told Reuters.
Microsoft declined to comment to Quartz. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Offering enterprise AI services is one of the ways OpenAI is attempting to diversify its revenue stream. The company is reportedly on track to reach its target revenue of $1 billion it had projected for this year.
Lightcap told Bloomberg earlier this month ChatGPT Enterprise has over 600,000 users signed up — up from 150,000 in January. Lightcap said this year “is going to be the year of adoption for AI in the enterprise,” and that the company is “seeing tremendous momentum.”