Diversify AI products

The chaos at OpenAI’s management level has pushed customers to diversify their AI products to avoid the risk of dependency. This has created a diversity of AI sources even though OpenAI is still considered one of the best tools.

OpenAI said it did not lose any customers during the turmoil that saw Sam Altman fired and then reinstated as CEO. However, OpenAI’s management turmoil in November 2023 could have a lasting impact on the company’s business, as some customers see it as a wake-up call about the risks of relying too much on one company’s technology.

Executives at companies using OpenAI’s software say they are looking to diversify their use of other companies’ technology to prevent future risks. At Walmart, for example, senior leaders have called meetings to remind some internal technology team members not to go directly to OpenAI to build AI tools. Instead, they should stick with Walmart’s internally developed platform, which can be swapped across multiple AI models, including OpenAI’s, to ensure Walmart’s AI software doesn’t stop working.

A Walmart spokesperson said the company’s focus has always been on developing general AI tools that are compatible with a wide range of language models. Similarly, other companies have been working quickly to ensure they are protected from potential risks.

Doug Merritt, CEO of cloud networking company Aviatrix, immediately checked with the technology team to determine that Aviatrix’s AI tools were not dependent on OpenAI. According to Merritt, Aviatrix is still using ChatGPT but is not tied to it. Companies are not completely abandoning OpenAI, but even shifting some future work to competitors could begin to erode OpenAI’s dominance.

Competitors like Google and other giants, as well as startups like Anthropic, are all working to chip away at OpenAI’s market share. The problems at OpenAI show that the single option isn’t enough, said Manyam Mallela, co-founder of Blueshift, which sells AI marketing software. That’s why in recent months, companies have been looking to license AI software from a number of vendors and are starting to use cheaper, more task-specific software instead of OpenAI’s powerful and relatively expensive tools.

Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky noted that his company provides access to a number of AI models, including those created by OpenAI competitors Anthropic and Cohere, as well as free open-source software created by Meta Platforms. According to Selipsky, no one wants to be locked into a single AI or cloud provider, especially now.

KHANH MINH

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