Anthropic has announced a $1.5 billion joint venture with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs to deploy AI services directly into enterprise operations, while OpenAI is simultaneously launching a competing $10 billion venture with similar goals. The parallel moves reveal a seismic shift in AI monetization: instead of selling software licenses, the industry's leading labs are now positioning themselves as high-end consulting firms powered by artificial intelligence.

Why Are AI Companies Abandoning the Software Model?

The economics are compelling. For every dollar companies spend on software, they spend six on services, according to industry analysis cited in the sources. This six-to-one ratio has made consulting a multitrillion-dollar industry, and AI-native firms are now positioned to disrupt it entirely. Rather than licensing Claude or ChatGPT as tools, Anthropic and OpenAI are embedding their own engineers directly into client operations to redesign workflows and implement AI systems end-to-end.

The Anthropic venture, which remains unnamed, will operate as a standalone entity with Anthropic engineering resources embedded directly within its team. This mirrors Palantir's forward-deployed engineer model, a structure that combines implementation capability with ownership of the underlying AI model. The venture has drawn backing from General Atlantic, Leonard Green, Apollo Global Management, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC, and Sequoia Capital, giving it immediate access to hundreds of portfolio companies.

"Enterprise demand for Claude is significantly outpacing any single delivery model. This new firm brings additional operating capability to the ecosystem," said Krishna Rao, Anthropic's Chief Financial Officer.

Krishna Rao, Chief Financial Officer at Anthropic

OpenAI's competing venture, called The Development Company, is operating at a larger scale. It is raising $4 billion from 19 investors against a $10 billion valuation. Named investors include TPG, Brookfield Asset Management, Advent, and Bain Capital, with no apparent overlap between the two ventures' investor bases.

How Will These Ventures Transform Enterprise AI Adoption?

Both ventures are designed to solve a critical bottleneck: the scarcity of engineers who can implement frontier AI systems at speed. Blackstone's portfolio includes 275 companies, many of which are eager to adopt AI but lack the internal expertise to do so. Blackstone President and COO Jon Gray emphasized this challenge on CNBC, noting that companies are asking for help beyond just access to the technology itself.

The ventures will operate through a series of practical steps to embed AI into client operations:

• Direct Engineering Deployment: Anthropic and OpenAI engineers will sit down with clinicians, IT staff, and operational teams to build tools that fit into existing workflows rather than forcing companies to restructure around new technology.
• Workflow Redesign: Engagements will focus on reshaping internal processes to leverage AI-driven agents, allowing companies to complete tasks faster and with fewer manual steps.
• Preemptive Model Access: Clients will receive early access to the latest upgrades to Anthropic's and OpenAI's models before public release, helping them address emerging cybersecurity concerns tied to unprecedented AI capabilities.

For private equity firms, the financial incentive is enormous. Labor represents a $60 trillion annual cost globally. If AI can make workers 15% more efficient, that translates to $9 trillion in potential value creation across the economy. Blackstone's own portfolio companies have increased their spending on large language models by 15 times in the past year, demonstrating the urgency of this transformation.

What Does This Mean for the Consulting Industry?

The ventures represent an implicit indictment of traditional consulting models. Goldman Sachs' Marc Nachmann stated that the venture would help "democratize access to forward-deployed engineers" for companies that currently cannot afford the talent or consulting fees required to build AI systems independently. This positions AI-native firms as a lower-cost alternative to McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain, which have historically dominated enterprise transformation projects.

Private equity was a natural beachhead for this model. PE-backed CFOs already face mounting sponsor pressure to embed AI into planning, forecasting, and reporting, with 85% of buyers now factoring AI-enabled finance capabilities into company valuations. Firms that fail to integrate AI risk being penalized at exit. The Anthropic and OpenAI ventures offer PE sponsors a turnkey alternative to hiring Big Three consultants at what is likely to be a fraction of the cost.

"We've got 275 companies. They're very interested in using Anthropic's enterprise technology, but they're saying, 'Can you help me get there? Can you help me change the workflow?'" said Jon Gray, Blackstone's President.

Jon Gray, President at Blackstone

The timing is significant. Both Anthropic and OpenAI are fundraising at a blistering pace while circling possible initial public offerings. OpenAI announced $122 billion in new funding at the end of March against an $852 billion valuation. Anthropic is in the final stages of its own funding round, seeking $50 billion against a $900 billion valuation. These consulting ventures represent a new revenue stream that could materially impact their valuations and path to profitability.

The future of AI revenue may not resemble software licensing at all, but instead look like consulting, rebuilt from the model up. As Sequoia partner Julien Bek argued in April, the world's next great company won't sell software, but outcomes: legal services, financial analysis, insurance processing delivered by AI while billed like consulting. The Anthropic and OpenAI ventures are essentially that thesis, capitalized and staffed.