OpenAI And Anthropic Are Pushing Into AI Consulting

A week after Anthropic’s push into consulting, OpenAI’s launch of DeployCo marks a pivot towards the enterprise AI market, not merely as a technology provider but as a player in AI implementation and consulting services. The move reflects a growing realization across the market that AI ROI requires deep AI implementation.  

Yet, while most executives now recognize AI’s strategic importance, relatively few organizations have succeeded in embedding AI deeply into business operations or generating meaningful returns from their AI investments. The bottleneck is no longer access to models, but rather the operational, organizational, and governance capabilities required to scale AI effectively. 

OpenAI Is Searching For Additional Revenue Opportunities

DeployCo signals OpenAI’s intention to move beyond selling foundation models and into the enterprise execution layer. Inspired in part by Palantir’s Forward Deployed Engineer model, OpenAI plans to embed AI specialists directly within customer organizations to identify use cases, redesign workflows, and oversee implementation. 

Backed by $4 billion in funding, strategic partnerships with major consultancies and investment firms, and the acquisition of applied AI consultancy Tomoro.ai, DeployCo aims to accelerate enterprise adoption while simultaneously opening a lucrative new revenue stream traditionally dominated by IT services firms.

The Opportunity Is Substantial

Many enterprises remain stuck in AI pilot mode. They are struggling to operationalize AI. They are trying to overcome gaps in data readiness, AI governance, change management, workforce AI skills, and workflow redesign. OpenAI’s pivot towards AI consulting aims to provide support to overcome these pain points by combining technology access with hands-on implementation support. 

In doing so, OpenAI is effectively positioning itself as both an AI platform provider and transformation partner. If successful, this combination could reshape the competitive landscape for IT consulting and systems integration providers.

IT Service Providers Cannot Ignore This Trend

For traditional IT and professional services firms, DeployCo represents both a warning sign and a catalyst to move towards higher-value-generating activities such as workflow redesign. Providers focused narrowly on implementation risk commoditization as AI vendors move closer to enterprise execution. 

The firms most likely to remain differentiated will be those capable of delivering holistic transformation, combining AI deployment with innovation strategy, talent transformation, operational workflow redesign, AI governance, and business model reinvention.

Success Is Far From Guaranteed

However, significant risks accompany this ambition. PAC questions whether DeployCo possesses the breadth, delivery scale, and organizational maturity required to execute complex, enterprise-wide AI transformations consistently.  

Challenges include the inherently slower and less scalable economics of consulting, potential conflicts of interest arising from OpenAI’s role as both vendor and advisor, the difficulty of managing a large partner ecosystem, and the possibility of alienating existing systems integration partners who may increasingly view OpenAI as a competitor rather than collaborator.

For an in-depth analysis of OpenAI’s pivot, please check PAC’s report Why OpenAI (and Anthropic) Are Entering the Consulting Game.