OpenAI launches OpenAI Deployment Company, acquires Tomoro
OpenAI said it has launched the OpenAI Deployment Company and acquired Tomoro, an AI consulting and engineering firm, to get the company rolling.
The launch of the OpenAI Deployment Company, which kicked off with a $4 billion investment, and acquisition of Tomoro will give the company a base of 150 forward deployed engineers.
OpenAI's move follows a similar arrangement by Anthropic to work with various private equity companies. The immaturity of AI deployments and complexity wrangling AI agents have spurred on run on the FDE model popularized by Palantir.
- LLM giants just love private equity partnerships
- Forward deployed engineers: The promise, peril in AI deployments
According to OpenAI, the launch of the deployment unit is backed by 19 investment firms, consultants and systems integrators. The partnership is led by TPG, with Advent, Bain Capital, and Brookfield as co-lead founding partners, and B Capital, BBVA, Emergence Capital, Goanna, Goldman Sachs, SoftBank Corp., Warburg Pincus and WCAS as founding partners. Integrators include Bain, Capgemini and McKinsey.
OpenAI said:
"The OpenAI Deployment Company will operate as an extension of OpenAI, keeping customers closely connected to the research, product, and in-house deployment teams shaping frontier AI.
That connection is a major advantage. The OpenAI Deployment Company FDEs will be able to build for where OpenAI’s frontier capabilities are headed, giving customers systems designed to improve as new models, tools, and deployment patterns come online."
My take:
- Partners are critical to rolling out AI, but they should be operating on your behalf. The OpenAI Deployment Company isn't akin to IBM Consulting, which will operate independently and integrate everything. The chances of OpenAI Deployment Company using Anthropic if it's a better choice is nil.
- OpenAI portrays its services unit as a benefit due to its vertical integration, but you can expect CxOs to view the effort through the lens of lock-in.
- The acquisition of Tomoro is smart because it give OpenAI Deployment Company a running start.
- It'll be interesting to see how this OpenAI services launch impacts its other partners.