OpenAI's Major Strategic Shift: Cut Non-Core Projects to Focus on Programming and Enterprise Sectors

OpenAI is finalizing a major strategic shift, planning to focus on programming and enterprise users by cutting non-core projects. Fidji Simo, CEO of Applied Business, announced this change at an all-staff meeting last week, stating that Sam Altman and Mark Chen are evaluating the priority of non-core businesses, with specific adjustments to be notified to employees in weeks.

The direct pressure for this shift comes from Anthropic. Anthropic has dominated the enterprise market with AI agent products like Claude Code and Cowork, with a more streamlined product line and no involvement in image or video generation. Simo said: "We can't miss this opportunity by being distracted by side quests; we must excel in enterprise productivity." Over the past year, OpenAI launched products like Sora and Atlas, but its "multi-front" strategy has put the company in a passive position.