OpenAI is expanding its push into corporate markets by building an army of AI consultants to help enterprises adopt its technology, reflecting how difficult it remains for businesses to turn AI promise into real‑world use. As part of its ambitious goal to reach US$100 billion in revenue by 2027, the company is hiring hundreds of technical experts who can bridge the gap between cutting‑edge models and the complex needs of enterprise clients. These consultants are tasked with helping organisations deploy, customise and scale AI solutions effectively across departments and workflows instead of just showcasing technology in demos.
The move underscores a broader truth about enterprise AI: while most large firms are experimenting with AI, only a minority of projects actually reach full production. Research shows that although around 87 % of large enterprises say they are implementing AI solutions, only roughly 31 % of use cases get fully deployed at scale. This gap highlights that pilots often stall when organisations encounter integration, governance or operational hurdles that simple proofs‑of‑concept never expose.
Enterprises frequently struggle with challenges like legacy infrastructure, fragmented data systems, governance frameworks, and unclear strategic alignment, which make AI integration more difficult than expected. In many cases, companies treat AI as a side project rather than a strategic initiative, leading to fragmented efforts that fail to generate measurable business value. Consultants from OpenAI and partners like Accenture and Nagarro are helping clients navigate these issues, offering playbooks, industry best practices and engineering support to anchor AI deployments in real business processes.
However, the reliance on consultant armies also raises questions about the maturity of current AI solutions. If vendors need hundreds of specialists just to get their products working at scale, it suggests that many enterprise deployments remain complex and bespoke rather than plug‑and‑play. Beyond technical implementation, organisations must also align on governance, data access, security and change management to realise sustained AI value — showing that the biggest challenges are often organisational and cultural, not just technological.
