IBM partners with OpenAI to reach enterprise customers

IBM announced its partnership with OpenAI on Thursday, less than a year after the company announced a similar alliance with Anthropic. The deal, whose terms were not disclosed, will see IBM and OpenAI jointly market AI offerings and develop industry-specific solutions for sectors including financial services, government, telecommunications, and retail.

Under the agreement, IBM will establish a dedicated OpenAI practice within IBM Consulting. According to Mike Healy, managing partner at IBM Consulting, IBM will train and certify tens of thousands of consultants—primarily retraining existing employees—on OpenAI's technologies over the next several months. The training will focus on OpenAI's Codex, API, cybersecurity, and consultative solution credentials. IBM will also create a group of specialized "Forward Deployed Experts" trained through OpenAI's Partner Network. IBM plans to integrate OpenAI's latest models, including GPT-5.6, Codex, and ChatGPT Work, into IBM Consulting Advantage, its AI platform for consultants, to help clients deploy AI across core business operations.

The partnership reflects OpenAI's broader enterprise strategy. As competition among AI model developers increasingly shifts from building more capable models to winning corporate customers and large-scale deployments, OpenAI has pursued partnerships with major consulting and technology firms to expand its reach. The company has previously announced partnerships with IT services firms including Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, underscoring a strategy of working with large global systems integrators.

For IBM, the deal expands its range of frontier AI partnerships as the company pursues a model-agnostic strategy that combines its own Granite family of AI models with offerings from third-party developers. IBM has increasingly positioned itself as an integrator of multiple AI models through its watsonx platform and global consulting business. The partnership also comes as IBM looks to accelerate growth in its AI business following a 2026 revenue forecast cut announced last month after weaker-than-expected quarterly results. During its last earnings call, Chief Executive Arvind Krishna stated that AI adoption was complementing, rather than replacing, demand for IBM's mainframe business. Additionally, in June, IBM and OpenAI partnered for the cybersecurity-focused OpenAI Daybreak Cyber Partner Program; the new deal expands that relationship by integrating OpenAI's AI models with IBM Autonomous Security, the company's multi-agent-powered cybersecurity service.