OpenAI takes ownership stake in Thrive Holdings
OpenAI has found a new route into the corporate world, striking a partnership with Thrive Holdings aimed at speeding up enterprise adoption of AI. Thrive, which invests in and acquires companies built around long-term, tech-driven transformation, is pitching this as a way to bake AI directly into the machinery of everyday business rather than bolt it on later.
The plan is to focus first on accounting and IT services, two areas where high volume, rules-heavy workflows dominate and where OpenAI thinks its models can deliver quick wins. Instead of the usual vendor-client handshake, OpenAI will embed its research, product and engineering teams directly into Thrive’s portfolio companies. The ambition is a mix of speed, accuracy and cost savings, with the hope that quality improves at the same time.
Both sides frame the effort as a template that can be cloned across industries once it proves itself. Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s chief operating officer, calls the partnership an attempt to show “what’s possible when frontier AI research and deployment are rapidly deployed across entire organisations to revolutionise how businesses work and engage with customers.” He adds that he hopes it becomes a model for companies “around the world.”
Thrive’s founder and chief executive Joshua Kushner casts the deal as part of a broader shift in how technology changes industries. He argues that transformation has “historically” happened from the outside in, but now the shift will come “from the inside out as domain experts and practitioners use AI as a native tool to reshape their fields.” He says the businesses Thrive acquires offer the right “reward systems” for this evolution because they combine domain expertise with the real-world data that can help improve AI systems on specific tasks.
The companies are keen to frame this as a strategic partnership rather than a tech demo. Whether embedding OpenAI teams inside portfolio companies becomes a blueprint for enterprise AI or just another corporate experiment is what 2025 will reveal.
