IPO-ready OpenAI has found a way to strengthen itself in the corporate marketplace

ChatGPT developer OpenAI announced on Monday, February 23, that it has entered into multi-year partnership agreements with four major consulting agencies to help the company deploy its enterprise Frontier platform to its customers. This is OpenAI's way of trying to grow its share of revenue from the enterprise segment in the run-up to its IPO.

The artificial intelligence startup said it has formed so-called "Frontier Alliances" with Accenture, Boston Consulting Group, Capgemini and McKinsey & Co. according to a company press release. OpenAI did not disclose financial details of the partnerships.

Frontier is a software suite that connects disparate systems and data within a single organization. The platform is designed to make it easier for companies to manage, deploy and build AI agents - tools that can autonomously perform tasks on behalf of the user. OpenAI said its consulting partners will help customers define strategy and more quickly implement agents into real-world production processes.

The corporate segment of OpenAI accounts for about 40% of the company's revenue, CNBC writes. The AI startup expects this figure to approach 50% by the end of the year, OpenAI CFO Sarah Fryer told the channel in January.

OpenAI decided to partner with consulting firms because they already have relationships with corporate clients and a deep understanding of how those businesses operate, OpenAI Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser explained in an interview with CNBC.

Developer ChatGPT competes with Google and Anthropic for users and market share, and the company has been actively recruiting enterprise customers in recent months, CNBC noted.

After the publication of the company's announcement about cooperation with consulting agencies, their share prices at the trading on Monday decreased. Accenture - by 3.6%, Capgemini - by 5%.

According to OpenAI, the company's annual recurring revenue (ARR) is expected to exceed $20 billion in 2025, up from $6 billion in 2024. However, in January, the ChatGPT developer announced it would launch ads in the ChatGPT app for some U.S. users, despite CEO Sam Altman previously expressing personal opposition to ads and calling their possible introduction a "last resort" for OpenAI.

OpenAI is close to closing the first phase of a new investment round for more than $100 billion, Bloomberg learned on February 19. The company's valuation, taking into account the funds raised, may exceed $850 billion, the agency's sources say (OpenAI was valued at $730 billion before attracting investment - premani). The main investors in the new round of financing will be Amazon, SoftBank, Nvidia and Microsoft. The second phase of the round with the participation of venture capital funds and sovereign investors is expected later and may significantly increase the total amount of funds raised.

OpenAI is preparing for an IPO in the fourth quarter of 2026, sources told The Wall Street Journal in late January. The company is accelerating its IPO preparations amid intensifying competition with Anthropic, a developer of large language models and AI systems, which also plans to go public in 2026.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor