Startups & Funding
OpenAI acquires presentation startup NextSlide
OpenAI has acquired presentation startup NextSlide, whose team is now working on ChatGPT, though the deal's financial terms were not disclosed.
Presentation startup NextSlide has joined OpenAI, with its team now working on ChatGPT. NextSlide’s product, according to a note from founder Ahmed Beshry on the startup’s website, could turn prompts, notes, documents, or research into a polished, editable presentation. Beshry said the goal was to make visual communication more accessible and help more people express their ideas clearly — and that by joining OpenAI, the team plans to keep pursuing that mission, building AI products that “help people create, communicate, and turn their ideas into meaningful work.”
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. In a note on LinkedIn, Beshry said the announcement is coming a few months late, since the acquisition actually took place earlier this year.
Beshry was previously a co-founder at Caper AI, a smart cart and cashier-less checkout startup that Instacart acquired in 2021.
Why it matters
Folding a presentation-generation team directly into ChatGPT signals that OpenAI wants to build document- and visual-communication tools around its core chatbot, rather than leaving that ground to standalone productivity startups.