OpenAI is launching a new product that could help the company take another step beyond the highly competitive business of building AI models.
The offering, called OpenAI Presence, helps companies make AI agents operate better by connecting these systems to internal company data, policies, existing software and workflows.
It is designed to automate parts of customer support, sales, and other tasks such as resolving billing issues, assisting with insurance claims, or handling employee IT service requests.
This is the latest example of OpenAI trying to expand into wider parts of the enterprise software market beyond selling access to AI models. While Presence could help OpenAI win more enterprise business, it could also allow the startup to compete with some of its AI model customers.
The new service includes features that allow a customer to test their agent for a selected job, including simulations, guardrails, human review and automated raters that use AI to review agent spend. Once these agents are introduced into enterprises, OpenAI’s Codex tool can investigate emerging issues and suggest updates.
Presence also has AI-powered voice and chat technology that could help enterprise customers automate more interactions with existing and potential customers.
A dashboard shows OpenAI’s new Presence service.
OpenAI
OpenAI provides the service to corporate customers on a case-by-case basis. Users must work with OpenAI engineers or specific partners to access the tool.
“The agent is only given the knowledge and system access necessary for that job,” OpenAI said. “The company sets the guidelines: what the agent can do, when they need approval and when a person should take over.”
OpenAI is already using the tool to power its AI phone support channel for English speakers, the startup said.
The competition for AI models is fierce, with competitors such as Anthropic, Google, xAI, Meta, Mistral, DeepSeek and others offering increasingly powerful models. This month, new open Chinese AI models have again shown that performance differences are narrowing, prices are falling, and the willingness of many customers to switch between providers is increasing.
This dynamic is putting pressure on OpenAI to move into enterprise software, where products matter more and customers buy complete business solutions, not just AI models.
Presence seems to be part of this strategy. Instead of asking companies to build their own agent systems, OpenAI packages the surrounding software needed to safely deploy AI in large organizations.
OpenAI isn’t the only AI lab going beyond models. Earlier this year, Anthropic launched an Enterprise AI Services company and expanded its Claude partner network to help companies integrate AI into their operations.
With Presence, OpenAI is looking less and less like a model company and more like an enterprise software provider with AI at its core.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-presence-corporate-software-customer-service-sales-2026-7
