OpenAI plans to almost double its headcount by the end of the year as it accelerates a push to sell to businesses and gain ground on rival Anthropic in a race for a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

The $730bn start-up was aiming to grow to about 8,000 employees from about 4,500 today, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.


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The new hires will largely work across product development, engineering, research and sales. OpenAI would also step up recruitment of specialists to focus on what the company calls “technical ambassadorship”, helping businesses make better use of its tools, according to the people.

OpenAI has signed a new lease on a San Francisco office, taking its footprint in the city to over 1mn sq ft as it prepares to grow by about 12 employees a day this year.

The recruitment drive forms part of a strategic overhaul at the AI group, as it seeks to arrest Anthropic’s momentum with business customers and fend off rising competition from Google.

Business customers purchasing AI for the first time are choosing Anthropic at three times the rate of OpenAI, according to card and billing data from 50,000-plus customers of payments start-up Ramp, a reverse of the companies’ positions a year ago.