OpenAI has added a fresh layer to its fast-expanding web of strategic deals, announcing on Monday that it is taking an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings — a company launched in April by Thrive Capital, one of OpenAI’s biggest and most influential backers.
The move widens OpenAI’s ongoing push to diversify its revenue streams at a time when the company is still battling to turn its wildly popular ChatGPT product into a profitable business. By embedding itself directly inside operating businesses across the “real economy,” OpenAI is placing bets that its models can unlock new efficiencies, reshape traditional workflows, and ultimately return financial gains that could support its heavy compute needs.
Thrive Holdings focuses on buying, owning, and running companies that could benefit from new technologies like AI, with an early focus on accounting and IT services. As part of the deal, OpenAI will embed engineers, researchers, and product teams inside Thrive Holdings’ companies, aiming to speed up their AI adoption and cut operating costs.
OpenAI, currently valued at $500 billion, did not disclose how much it invested. But the structure of the partnership means the size of OpenAI’s stake can expand as Thrive Holdings’ companies grow. A person familiar with the agreement — who asked not to be named because the details are private — said the setup is designed to align long-term incentives. Another person familiar with the deal said it also serves as a way for OpenAI to be compensated for its services.
Joshua Kushner, CEO and founder of both Thrive Capital and Thrive Holdings, called the partnership a natural extension of their long-running relationship.
“We are excited to extend our partnership with OpenAI to embed their frontier models, products, and services into sectors we believe have tremendous potential to benefit from technological innovation and adoption,” he said in a statement.
Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s COO, framed the partnership as a real-world testing ground for how AI can transform core business operations.
“This partnership with Thrive Holdings is about demonstrating what’s possible when frontier AI research and deployment are rapidly deployed across entire organizations to revolutionize how businesses work and engage with customers,” he said.
It’s another example of OpenAI’s increasingly circular dealmaking strategy: the company invests in partners, those partners expand their AI infrastructure or operations using OpenAI’s products, and OpenAI gains both strategic influence and a potential revenue backstop. In recent months, it has taken positions in infrastructure players like AMD and CoreWeave, which supply the compute backbone that its own models depend on.
The announcement also arrived alongside a second major update: OpenAI revealed that ChatGPT Enterprise will be deployed to “tens of thousands” of employees at Accenture. The consulting giant is already one of the most aggressive adopters of generative AI in the corporate world, with its own teams dedicated to helping clients integrate tools like ChatGPT into daily operations.
The dual announcements show an evolving playbook — one that goes far beyond model releases and consumer subscriptions for OpenAI. With escalating compute demands, rising operating costs, and investors expecting OpenAI to one day convert its global popularity into sustainable earnings, the company is working to deepen its roots inside businesses where AI can drive measurable, billable change.
The Thrive Holdings deal drops OpenAI more directly into sectors where AI adoption has barely scratched the surface. And if the partnership works as designed, the company won’t just sell AI — it’ll partly own the gains created by it.
