OpenAI Hires Salesforce Partnership Chief to Lead Enterprise Expansion

OpenAI has launched the Economic Research Exchange, a platform designed to study artificial intelligence's effects on employment, productivity, and broader economic outcomes. The initiative opens applications for selected research projects that will examine AI's economic impact. The program represents a structured effort to generate empirical evidence on how AI deployment affects labor markets and economic performance.

Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, discussed the company's restructured approach to AI development in a podcast interview. Microsoft signed a new contract with OpenAI in October that allows the company to pursue superintelligence independently while continuing to license OpenAI models. Suleyman has assembled a dedicated superintelligence team and built infrastructure to train frontier models, announcing seven new models across multiple modalities at Microsoft Build.

Crusoe Energy, the data center developer building OpenAI's Stargate supercomputer facility in Abilene, Texas, is facing higher-than-expected costs and technical challenges integrating natural gas turbines with the AI infrastructure. Engineers have been working overtime to resolve compatibility issues between the power generation system and one of the most expensive AI supercomputers ever built. The project, part of OpenAI's broader Stargate computing initiative, is encountering obstacles that were not anticipated during initial planning.

Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman disclosed that a contractual change with OpenAI six months ago freed the company to independently pursue superintelligence using its own researchers, data, and custom silicon. The company announced seven new in-house AI models branded under the MAI family, including a flagship reasoning model and tools for coding, image generation, transcription, and voice synthesis. This marks a strategic shift where Microsoft is building alongside OpenAI rather than relying solely on it, though the company is not abandoning the partnership.