IBM and OpenAI Partner to Accelerate Enterprise AI Adoption Across Regulated Industries

IBM partners with OpenAI to bolster enterprise AI push

IBM on Thursday announced its partnership with OpenAI to bring the AI company's models and tools to more enterprise customers, opening another avenue for OpenAI to connect with some of the world's largest companies through IBM's global consulting business as competition for corporate AI spending intensifies. The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, comes less than a year after IBM announced a similar alliance with Anthropic. OpenAI and IBM will jointly market AI offerings and develop industry-specific solutions for sectors including financial services, government, telecommunications, and retail, IBM said. Under the agreement, IBM will establish a dedicated OpenAI practice within IBM Consulting and train and certify tens of thousands of consultants -- primarily retraining existing employees -- on OpenAI's technologies over the next several months, Mike Healy, managing partner at IBM Consulting, told TechCrunch. The training will focus on OpenAI's Codex, API, cybersecurity, and consultative solution credentials. IBM will also create a group of specialized "Forward Deployed Experts" trained through OpenAI's Partner Network, Healy said. IBM said that it would integrate OpenAI's latest models, including GPT-5.6, Codex, and ChatGPT Work, into IBM Consulting Advantage, its AI platform for consultants, to help clients deploy AI across core business operations. The partnership is the latest in OpenAI's push to expand its enterprise business through consulting firms and technology partners, as competition among AI model developers increasingly shifts from building more capable models to winning corporate customers and large-scale deployments. The company has previously announced partnerships with IT services firms, including Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, underscoring a strategy of working with large global systems integrators to bring its AI products to enterprise customers. For IBM, OpenAI's agreement expands its range of frontier AI partnerships as the company pursues a model-agnostic strategy that combines its own Granite family of AI models with offerings from third-party developers. The company has increasingly positioned itself as an integrator of multiple AI models through its watsonx platform and global consulting business. The partnership also comes as IBM looks to accelerate growth in its AI business after lowering its 2026 revenue forecast last month following weaker-than-expected quarterly results. During its last earnings call, Chief Executive Arvind Krishna maintained that AI remains a long-term growth driver. He stated that AI adoption was complementing, rather than replacing, demand for IBM's mainframe business. In June, IBM and OpenAI partnered for the cybersecurity-focused OpenAI Daybreak Cyber Partner Program. The new deal expands that relationship by integrating OpenAI's AI models with IBM Autonomous Security, the company's multi-agent-powered cybersecurity service.

IBM Validates OpenAI's Push-Pull-Partner Enterprise Strategy

OpenAI is on a quest, chasing down Anthropic's Claude toolkit to be seen as the enterprise frontier model. Here's the push-pull-partner strategy we see unfolding at OpenAI: * Push. CEO Sam Altman pushed a vision for an AI-powered world out into the global dialog. Investors, Boards, and The Media loved it. This strategy is alive and well as OpenAI is cited repeatedly by global CEOs as their lead AI supplier. At the same time, on the back of astounding (and well deserved) consumer adoption of ChatGPT, OpenAI started pushing customers to expand how they use the tool, for learning, shopping, content generation, and work. That leads to the pull strategy. * Pull. If you use ChatGPT at home, you likely also use it at work Any time a consumer is empowered by technology, they bring it to work. Businesses respond by putting the new technology on the watch list for an enterprise agreement. OpenAI benefited tremendously at first. But it fell behind Anthropic's Claude Code and Cowork, who did it better in 2025 and 2026. OpenAI and has been digging out of that hole ever since. Which leads us to . . . * Partner. When we evaluated the 10 best AI consulting service providers in early 2026, only four of them - Accenture, BCG, Capgemini, and McKinsey - could brag that they were OpenAI's frontier launch partners. This vaguely defined, but cool sounding arrangement is still a bit of a mystery to us. Despite OpenAI's quest to build its own deployment force, it needs service provider partnership to scale the technology. The model builder has hired partner managers from Salesforce and Google and announced many partner programs and partnerships since. The IBM/OpenAI announcement marks a maturing of this strategy. We write this while the ink is still wet on a partnership announcement between IBM and OpenAI. This new partnership will embed OpenAI's tools into IBM Consulting Advantage (its AI-powered delivery platform) and establish a business group with forward-deployed teams to sell and implement OpenAI-centric solutions. We see this as a signal to the enterprise that Big Blue is now squarely behind OpenAI. That carries weight. This partnership: * Checks all the boxes on a tech-service partnership. IBM shifted to a partner strategy a decade ago and now presents its consulting services squarely through the lens of cloud, software, and now AI partnerships. IBM tells us that at least 40% of IBM Consulting revenue is associated with a partner. IBM is setting up a practice and business group with OpenAI-certified engineers and what IBM is calling forward-deployed units, small teams of data science, engineering, and domain expertise. IBM will commit to co-marketing and co-selling OpenAI's offerings, train its consultants and sales teams, and commit to a sales number. * Slots into a partner strategy that ranks among the most aggressive. Why? Because IBM is a product company first and service provider second. Meaning the partnership with OpenAI is also with the product side of the house, with Red Hat, WatsonX Orchestrate, and the ability to secure the solution and incorporate the OpenAI models into an enterprise workflow. This is something that only IBM can do today (though Accenture and HCL are hot on the trail.) * Includes a credible enterprise-scale testing ground for OpenAI's Codex. Anthropic's Claude Code and Cowork are taking the enterprise by storm. OpenAI is playing catch up. In this partnership, IBM has committed to incorporate OpenAI's tools into IBM Consulting Advantage, the most advanced AI-powered delivery platform we saw in the evaluation. Because IBM is also a software company, they bring a more sophisticated delivery platform and 130,000 consultants using it. By committing to OpenAI's technology in this platform, IBM becomes client zero with an enterprise-scale testing ground for software development but also many other enterprise workloads. * Targets regulated industries. IBM has committed to securing OpenAI's solutions with deployment architectures that regulated firms can deploy with more confidence. Based on feedback we get from technology partners like Adobe, Salesforce, and SAP about the IBM partnership, IBM does regulated industries better than other providers. This alone makes the partnership deal unique. What should technology executives watch for? * Take a prove-it-to-me attitude. If this partnership is working, then when you ask IBM Consulting for an improvement in OpenAI's product, it should show up in OpenAI's roadmap ASAP. If not, then question why the partnership matters. * Don't make OpenAI your only model. Your enterprise architects are rapidly learning how to optimize AI workloads by parsing the job down into sub-agents that call on different models. IBM can help you with a model routing architecture and platform if you choose. OpenAI's models are only one ingredient in that mix. * Be wary of any offer to write OpenAI technology on IBM paper. In other words, expect that you will need a relationship with IBM and with OpenAI rather than a bundled RFP and price. It's too soon for "one throat to choke" with AI. Let Us Know How We Can Help There is so much going on at the intersection of software and models and services to talk about. Forrester customers can schedule a guidance session to investigate what this new partnership means for you.

IBM, OpenAI join forces to scale AI adoption, boost security

Specialised engineers and consultants trained through OpenAI's partner network will work directly with clients to help scale solutions. OpenAI - in its latest effort to garner enterprise support - has teamed up with IBM to provide organisations with its tools to scale AI deployment and turn better profits. The deal will see the two companies create industry-specific go-to market initiatives targeted at financial services, government, telecommunications and retail sectors, and comes at a time when AI investments are surging multi-fold despite only a fraction of businesses turning real returns. "While enterprises are rapidly investing in AI, they are looking for practical ways to apply it across their core operations to deliver measurable business outcomes and create new commercial models," said Andy Baldwin, the global senior vice-president at IBM Consulting. "The challenge is not access to AI technologies - it's integrating AI securely and at scale into complex enterprise environments and workflows." The partnership embeds OpenAI's latest frontier models including GPT-5.6 and products like Codex and ChatGPT Work into IBM's AI platform. IBM said it will deploy units of specialised engineers and consultants trained through OpenAI's partner network to work directly with clients to accelerate AI implementation across complex business workflows and highly regulated environments. The technology giant is also launching a dedicated channel through which more of its consultants and engineers can be certified under the partner network. The two also said they will expand their collaboration as part of OpenAI's cybersecurity partnership programme Daybreak by combining the AI giant's frontier capabilities with IBM's multi-agent-powered service designed to deliver decision-making and intelligence. With this, the collaborators hope to help clients manage both cyber and AI model risk, including application-layer vulnerabilities, governance gaps and operational risks that limits AI adoption, they said. "The organisations pulling ahead with AI are the ones turning it into a trusted part of how their business operates," said Denise Dresser, the chief revenue officer at OpenAI. Earlier this year, IBM set aside more than $10bn for its lofty quantum plans that hopes to deliver the world's first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

IBM partners with OpenAI to expand enterprise AI deployments

IBM said on Thursday it has partnered with OpenAI to bring the AI company's models and tools to more enterprise customers through IBM's consulting business. The companies will jointly market AI offerings and develop industry-specific solutions for financial services, government, telecommunications and retail, IBM said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. IBM will create a dedicated OpenAI practice within IBM Consulting and train and certify tens of thousands of consultants on OpenAI technologies over the next several months, Mike Healy, managing partner at IBM Consulting, told TechCrunch. The training will focus on OpenAI's Codex, API, cybersecurity and consultative solution credentials. IBM will also build a group of specialized "Forward Deployed Experts" trained through OpenAI's Partner Network, Healy said. IBM said it plans to integrate OpenAI's latest models, including GPT-5.6, Codex and ChatGPT Work, into IBM Consulting Advantage, its AI platform for consultants, to help clients deploy AI across core business operations. The agreement comes less than a year after IBM announced a similar alliance with Anthropic. IBM has been pursuing a model-agnostic approach that combines its own Granite family of AI models with third-party offerings through its watsonx platform and consulting business. OpenAI has been expanding its enterprise business through consulting firms and technology partners. It previously announced partnerships with IT services firms including Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services. The new agreement also expands an existing relationship between IBM and OpenAI. In June, the companies launched the cybersecurity-focused OpenAI Daybreak Cyber Partner Program, and IBM said the new deal will integrate OpenAI's models with IBM Autonomous Security, its multi-agent-powered cybersecurity service. The partnership comes after IBM last month lowered its 2026 revenue forecast following weaker-than-expected quarterly results. On the company's last earnings call, Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said AI remained a long-term growth driver and that adoption was complementing, rather than replacing, demand for IBM's mainframe business.

IBM Works With OpenAI to Provide AI Consulting

International Business Machines is working with OpenAI to help companies deploy AI across their businesses while strengthening cybersecurity. IBM said Thursday that its new partnership embeds frontier models including GPT-5.6 and products such as Codex and ChatGPTWork in IBM's AI consulting platform. The consulting platform combines AI agents, industry assets and cybersecurity capabilities to help businesses securely deploy AI at scale. IBM will bring engineers and consultants trained through OpenAI to work with clients on implementing the technology. IBM also will launch a dedicated program to train and certify consultants and engineers through OpenAI's program. The consultancy is geared toward helping companies in the financial services, government, telecommunications and retail sectors. IBM has said that one of the biggest challenges among its customers is organizing and securing the billions of new AI apps and agents as the companies start to employ more AI. Customers are looking for expertise that can help them keep track of their operating systems, IBM executives have said.