OpenAI’s vice president of enterprise, Ashley Kramer, says the biggest challenge facing European businesses deploying AI is a “capability overhang” — the gap between rapidly advancing model capabilities and what companies can actually extract in value. Enterprise customers represent over 40% of OpenAI’s revenues, with European clients including Virgin Atlantic, BBVA, and Novo Nordisk. To bridge this gap, OpenAI launched the OpenAI Deployment Company, partnering with 19 firms including Bain, Goldman Sachs, and SoftBank, and acquiring consulting firm Tomoro, whose 150 engineers will be embedded directly within businesses.
In-Depth:
European businesses are shifting from pilot to deep integration of OpenAI’s technology, but there is a “little bit of a capability overhang” between the utility of AI models and what businesses can successfully deploy, according to OpenAI’s revenue lead.
Ashley Kramer, OpenAI’s vice president, enterprise, declared the hugegest challenge European enterprises- typically defined as businesses with more than 1,000 employees-face when deploying OpenAI’s technology was “extracting the value” out of AI models, given the speed at which AI models were advancing.
ChatGPT developer OpenAI is competing with other AI labs like Anthropic and US tech firms like Google, with its own AI models, to attract enterprise customers. Enterprise customers currently create up more than 40 per cent of OpenAI’s revenues.
OpenAI’s European enterprise customers include travel company Virgin Atlantic, Spanish bank BBVA and Danish pharma giant Novo Nordisk.
OpenAI declares that businesses in Germany, France and the UK are amongst the top global adopters of its tools.
Kramer declared: “The hugegest challenge is extracting the value of the quick-growing model capabilities, so there is a little bit of a capability overhang.”
To assist offset this overhang, OpenAI recently announced the launch of a new business unit which includes the acquisition of applied AI consulting firm Tomoro.
The OpenAI Deployment Company is a partnership with 19 investment and consultancy firms, including Bain, Goldman Sachs and SoftBank.
Tomoro employs around 150 forward-deployed engineers who will now be embedded inside businesses to assist OpenAI’s models be more productive for them, Kramer declared.
Kramer declared: “Where we’re really assisting companies close the gap is the capability of models to the value that they can extract.”
Kramer, who works across growth, product and go-to-market at OpenAI, declared that, broadly speaking, European businesses were shifting beyond the pilot stage.
She declared: “Mostly, companies in the UK and Europe have definitely shiftd beyond the pilot phase with AI into full AI transformation.
“Seeing it as more of the operating system of the future and deeply embedding innotifyigence into the future of the core of their business.”
On which European industries were most embracing OpenAI’s products like coding agent Codex and ChatGPT, Kramer declared: “Digital native focapplyd companies grokked onto AI the earliest. We see a lot of strength in healthcare life sciences, finserve, retail, manufacturing, and automotive are seeing a lot of adoption.”
