Wedoany.com Report-Dec.2, OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has acquired an equity stake in Thrive Holdings as part of a strategic partnership aimed at integrating advanced artificial intelligence into traditional professional services sectors, including accounting and IT services, both companies announced on Monday.

OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024.

Under the non-monetary agreement, OpenAI will supply a dedicated research team and technical resources to collaborate closely with Thrive's industry experts. The joint effort will focus on transforming manual and fragmented business processes by developing specialised AI solutions, particularly through reinforcement learning techniques that incorporate continuous feedback from domain professionals.

Thrive Holdings, established this year by Thrive Capital under the leadership of Josh Kushner, has raised more than $1 billion to acquire established U.S.-based service providers. The platform currently operates accounting and IT firms serving over 10,000 customers nationwide and seeks to enhance their operational efficiency using artificial intelligence.

Anuj Mehndiratta, partner at Thrive Capital responsible for Thrive Holdings, explained that early deployment attempts revealed limitations with standard AI models when applied to complex, industry-specific tasks. The partnership with OpenAI addresses these challenges by enabling deeper customisation and ongoing improvement of the technology.

All intellectual property and products developed through the collaboration will be owned by Thrive Holdings. In return, OpenAI gains valuable real-world implementation data that can guide future model development, while securing an ownership interest in the holding company.

Mehndiratta stated in an interview: "We believe that aligning OpenAI through ownership is a similarly very powerful thing, where we can all kind of focus on the North Star of how do we go and build the leading products."

The arrangement further strengthens existing ties between OpenAI and Thrive Capital, which has previously invested several billion dollars in the AI research organisation. Despite the close relationship, Thrive Holdings emphasised that it remains open to utilising other AI systems, including open-source models, whenever they offer the most suitable solution for specific applications.

This collaboration represents a structured approach to bridging frontier AI capabilities with practical enterprise requirements, allowing both parties to accelerate the creation of tailored tools for professional services environments. The partnership is expected to generate insights that benefit both the acquired businesses and OpenAI's broader research objectives in the coming years.