OpenAI hopes to automate IT and accounting with Thrive Holdings

OpenAI has partnered with Thrive Holdings so its researchers can teach its models how to do useful work in a real business, starting with accounting and IT services.

Thrive Holdings was set up by Thrive Capital, which buys up traditional service providers and shifts them to AI. Given Thrive Capital is a major investor in OpenAI, it's no surprise that it's working with the Sam Altman-led AI company.

The new deal, financial details of which weren't disclosed, will see OpenAI take an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings. The tighter partnership gives OpenAI deeper access to Thrive Holdings' enterprise services to develop its own models to be put to serious work on specific tasks using real-world data and industry expertise found in actual enterprises.

“Historically, technology transformed industries from the outside in," said Joshua Kushner, CEO and founder of Thrive Capital and Thrive Holdings.

"We believe this paradigm shift will happen from the inside out as domain experts and practitioners use AI as a native tool to reshape their fields."

So far, working from the outside in has presented challenges. Indeed, Anuj Mehndiratta, partner at Thrive Capital who oversees Thrive Holdings, told Reuters that the OpenAI partnership was needed because Thrive Holdings was struggling with "off-the-shelf" AI solutions that weren't capable of managing the specific tasks required.

Embedding AI

By tying the companies more closely together, Open AI's researchers will embed into Thrive Holdings' businesses to better integrate AI into their operations and services. The aim is that work will create a "repeatable model" that can work across other industries.

Kushner added: "The businesses we acquire represent the right reward systems for this evolution, bringing together industry expertise and real-world data that can help improve models on specific tasks and capabilities."

"We believe the most powerful applications of AI will emerge from creating tight feedback loops between research, product, and engineering teams, in lock step with domain experts within businesses," a statement from Thrive Holdings added.

Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI, said the partnership is about showing the benefits of deploying frontier AI research across entire organizations — and hopes other companies follow Thrive's lead. "We hope this partnership serves as a model for how businesses and industries around the world can deeply partner with OpenAI," he said in a statement.

Automating enterprises

The partnership's first target will be accounting and IT services.

"[Thrive] Holdings currently operates in the accounting and IT services sectors, vast industries that produce hundreds of billions of revenue each year but still run on workflows that have barely changed in decades," the company said in a post on its website.

"Much of the work remains manual and scattered across disconnected systems, creating inconsistent customer experiences and needless complexity for employees."

OpenAI added: "The initial focus is accounting and IT services because these functions run high-volume, rules-driven, workflow-heavy processes where OpenAI's platform can drive immediate benefits."

But that's just the start.

"Many traditional industries that support the real economy share similar characteristics: high-volume processes, aging operational infrastructure, and teams relegated to repetitive, low-leverage work," the statement added.

"Our goal is to transform these sectors from the inside out and improve how employees work and the quality of service customers receive."

The Thrive partnership also marks a shift towards targeting specific tasks for OpenAI, rather than a generalist chat bot.

"By training the most advanced models for specific tasks within our businesses, guided by both company-specific data and expert feedback, we believe we can continuously improve model capabilities and ultimately establish AI as an integral driver of long-term enterprise value," Thrive Holdings said in a statement.

Circular deals

The deal is the latest circular partnership in the AI sector, as the parent company of Thrive Holdings is Thrive Capital, which has invested billions of dollars into OpenAI. OpenAI also recently signed a $100 billion deal with Nvidia that sees the chipmaker invest in the AI lab so it can afford to buy its chips.

Beyond that, the deal tightens OpenAI's connection to the Kushner family: Thrive Capital's CEO is the brother of Trump advisor Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, though Joshua Kushner has made clear his politics differ.

For OpenAI, the enterprise deal follows its tight partnership with Microsoft that's seen AI embedded in Windows and other software products. However, the two companies have drifted apart of late, with both sides widening their range of partnerships. Thrive Holdings did note that the deal with OpenAI was not exclusive, and it may consider using other models too.

This latest partnership comes as OpenAI is seeking more sources of revenue — the AI leader is expected to post revenue around the $20 billion mark this year, but has racked up spending above a trillion dollars over the next few years to build out the data centres and other infrastructure the company believes it requires to continue as a leader in AI.

To help pay for it all — or at least keep investors interested — OpenAI has been rumoured to be considering revenue sources from advertising to personal subscriptions, but a shift into automating core tasks in accounting and IT could prove much more lucrative.