Image Credits:Thomas Fuller\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket \/ Getty Images <\/p>\n
OpenAI is kicking off the new year with yet another acqui-hire. The AI giant is acquiring the team behind Convogo, a business software platform that helps executive coaches, consultants, talent leaders, and HR teams automate and improve leadership assessments and feedback reporting.<\/p>\n
An OpenAI spokesperson said the company is not acquiring Convogo\u2019s IP or technology, but rather hiring the team to work on its \u201cAI cloud efforts.\u201d The three co-founders \u2014 Matt Cooper, Evan Cater, and Mike Gillett \u2014 will join OpenAI as part of what a source familiar with the matter called an all-stock deal.<\/p>\n
Convogo\u2019s product will be wound down.<\/p>\n
The startup began as a \u201cweekend hackathon\u201d sparked by a question by Cooper\u2019s mother, who is an executive coach: Could an AI tool automate the drudgery of report writing so she could spend more time on the human coaching work she loves? Over the past two years, Convogo has helped \u201cthousands\u201d of coaches and partnered with the \u201cworld\u2019s top leadership development firms,\u201d per an email bearing news of the acquisition sent by Convogo.<\/p>\n
In the email, the team wrote that the real problem they uncovered in their work is how to bridge the gap between what is possible with each new model release and how to translate that into real-world outcomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re convinced now more than ever that the key to bridging that gap lies in thoughtful, purpose-built experiences, like what we\u2019ve built for coaches at Convogo,\u201d the founders wrote. \u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re thrilled to join OpenAI to continue our work of making AI accessible and useful to professionals in every industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Convogo acqui-hire marks OpenAI\u2019s ninth acquisition in the span of a year, per PitchBook data. In nearly all of those acquisitions, the product was either folded into OpenAI\u2019s ecosystem \u2014 as in the case of Sky<\/a>, the AI interface for Mac, or Statsig<\/a>, a product testing firm \u2014 or completely shut down as the team joined OpenAI, as in the cases of Roi<\/a>, Context.ai<\/a>, and Crossing Minds<\/a>.<\/p>\n