OpenAI Pushes Into Specialized AI for Industries

OpenAI's CFO Sarah Friar told a Goldman Sachs conference that the company is pushing AI into specialized fields like chip design, life sciences, and financial services. As businesses demand clearer returns on AI investments, OpenAI is exploring pricing based on business outcomes rather than just usage. To compete with open-weight models from China and rivals like Anthropic, OpenAI cut prices for its low-cost Luna model by 80%, boosting usage tenfold. OpenAI also used its own model to help design the Jalapeno chip, completing the 'tape-out' in nine months. The coding tool Codex now has 25 million users. From June to July, OpenAI's enterprise revenue grew 32%, while overall annualized revenue rose 20%. Enterprise and consumer revenue are now roughly equal, hitting targets early. Friar noted that deploying Luna directly can be cheaper than running Chinese open-source models in the cloud.