OpenAI reorganizes leadership to combat declining enterprise share

OpenAI has reorganized its leadership, appointing Barret Zoph to lead its enterprise sales efforts. The appointment comes as the company focuses on enterprise growth for 2026. Zoph is returning to OpenAI, where he previously served as the vice president of post-training inference from September 2022 to October 2024, to take on this new role.

The leadership shift comes as OpenAI faces growing pressure in the enterprise market, where its early dominance has slipped. According to a report from venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, OpenAI’s enterprise large language model usage market share dropped from 50% in 2023 to 27% at the end of 2025. Meanwhile, competitors have gained ground. Anthropic holds a 40% market share, up from an estimated 32% in July. Google has also seen steady adoption of its enterprise offerings, with its usage market share growing from 20% in July to 21% at the end of the year. This competitive pressure was highlighted in an internal OpenAI memo a few months ago, in which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed concern that Google Gemini’s growth was encroaching on OpenAI.

Zoph’s return to OpenAI follows a brief stint at Thinking Machine Labs, an AI startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. Zoph had joined the startup in October 2024. However, he left the company recently, with rumors swirling about whether Zoph and a few other former OpenAI employees were fired or left on their own accord. Despite the unclear circumstances of his departure, Zoph is now tasked with driving OpenAI’s business adoption. The company launched its ChatGPT Enterprise product in 2023 and claims it has more than 5 million business users, counting companies such as SoftBank, Target, and Lowe’s as customers.

To accelerate its enterprise push, OpenAI is looking to expand its reach. OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar recently noted in a blog post that enterprise growth is a key area of focus for the company in 2026. As part of this strategy, OpenAI has announced an expanded multi-year partnership with ServiceNow, an enterprise software company and OpenAI partner. The partnership will give ServiceNow customers access to OpenAI models, representing a key channel for OpenAI to secure more business users and counter its rivals’ market gains.

Why it matters

OpenAI is shifting its internal structure to prioritize enterprise revenue as it faces stiff competition from Anthropic and Google, which have eroded its early market dominance.