CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos reports on OpenAI’s push into Brazil, Sydney and New Delhi as part of a global land grab to sell AI tools directly to businesses.

State of Rio de Janeiro

The release of Open AI's ChatGPT has accelerated the development of artificial intelligence and warnings about its impact on society.

Rise of AI

OpenAI has expanded its international presence by opening its first office in Latin America, located in Brazil, which is its fastest-growing market in the region. The company has also established new offices in Sydney and New Delhi, strengthening its footprint in the Asia-Pacific region. 

This expansion is part of OpenAI's effort to increase direct enterprise sales, shifting some business away from its major partner, Microsoft. The company has grown rapidly, scaling from about 50 employees to more than 700 in 18 months, and is renegotiating the terms of its partnership with Microsoft, especially regarding enterprise sales revenue splits.

OpenAI opens first Latin America office, expands APAC footprint

OpenAI expanding its global footprint, opening new offices in Australia and Brazil. CNBC's Mackenzie Segalos has more in this report. OpenAI is expanding its global footprint, opening its first office in Latin America with the New Hub in Brazil, its fastest growing market in the region. It's also planting flags across Asia-Pacific with offices in Sydney and New Delhi. It's all part of a push to win enterprise AI dollars and capture deals it once flowed through Microsoft, its biggest partner and investor. When OpenAI sells directly to these business customers, the 80-20 revenue split tilts in its favor and that has fueled a rapid go-to-market build-out from about 50 people just 18 months ago to more than 700 today under COO Brad Lightcap. The turning point came in 2023 with GBT4 and OpenAI's first SaaS product, ChatGBT Enterprise. Lightcap told me it was the first time the models were intelligent enough to actually solve problems for businesses. Now, when it comes to selling that tech, Microsoft's pitch is ease of access through Azure. Companies already using other enterprise tools can simply tack on the OpenAI offering. But buying directly from OpenAI gives customers something different, direct access to the researchers building these frontier models. Similar to what Palantir does, OpenAI is embedding its technologists inside companies to help them deploy and optimize the models. But as OpenAI plants new flags abroad, the bigger tension is at home. It's renegotiating the terms of its Microsoft partnership, including how enterprise sales are split. That strain surfaced last year when Microsoft, in an SEC filing, officially labeled OpenAI a competitor in AI and even in search and news advertising, just days after the startup unveiled a prototype called SearchGBT. For CNBC Business News, I'm Mackenzie Segalos in San Francisco.

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Kyiv

Ukraine Invasion

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Minneapolis

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Tehran

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FBI investigating Minneapolis Catholic school shooting as hate crime

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New York

Middle East Conflict

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Copenhagen

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Nuuk

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Starbase

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Council of the City of Sydney

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Texas

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Baltimore

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Jerusalem

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OpenAI opens first Latin America office, expands APAC footprint

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