OpenAI launched a platform aimed at helping enterprises build, deploy and manage AI agents.
OpenAI Frontier is designed to connect different parts of a corporate ecosystem by helping agents develop the same skills that people “need to succeed” at work, according to a company blog post.
The company said it developed the platform to address a scenario that it believes is becoming increasingly familiar across enterprises: While isolated use cases of agents have improved efficiency and output, they need to function better as “AI coworkers” across an entire business.
The platform operates as a central resource, knitting together various disparate AI agents in use across an enterprise via “shared context, onboarding, hands-on learning with feedback and clear permissions and boundaries,” according to the company. In doing so, it aims to prevent the formation of silos and fragmentation caused by disconnected workflows across different systems.
Frontier is compatible with the systems that teams already have, meaning they will not have to re-platform, according to OpenAI. Customers can bring their “existing data and AI together where it lives — as well as integrate the applications [they] already use — using open standards,” the company said in its blog post.
This way, agents can be accessed through any interface, partnering with people wherever work is carried out. OpenAI said the functionality applies not only to those developed by OpenAI, but others created in-house and by third parties.
As part of Frontier’s agent management service, OpenAI will also pair experts known as forward deployed engineers with enterprise teams to provide hands-on assistance in extracting the maximum from their AI.
What is not known at this stage, however, is how much Frontier will cost.
The company provided early access to a “limited set” of customers and already the platform has been adopted by several enterprise stalwarts including HP, Intuit, Oracle, State Farm, Thermo Fisher and Uber. Others, such as BBVA, Cisco and T-Mobile, are running pilots. More widespread availability is promised in the coming months.
OpenAI needs Frontier to be a commercial success to help offset its massive investments in AI infrastructure. It has already made clear its intention to introduce advertising on some tiers of ChatGPT, while CFO Sarah Friar said at the start of the year that monetization had to be “native to the experience.”
Enterprise customers currently account for around 40% of OpenAI’s revenue, but Friar told CNBC at the World Economic Forum at Davos in January that she expected this to increase to 50% by the end of the year.
