OpenAI Seeks ‘Both Large And Small’ Partners; Accenture, PwC, Bain And More Talk New Program

‘There’s room for both large and small partners to succeed with us,’ says Colleen Kapase, OpenAI’s partner program leader. OpenAI partners including Accenture, PwC and Bain & Company talk about the new OpenAI Partner Network.

OpenAI’s new partner program is going live next month with a massive amount of hype coming from solution provider giants like Accenture, Bain and PwC, as the AI superstar is seeking partners of all sizes to join the OpenAI Partner Network.

“There’s room for both large and small partners to succeed with us,” OpenAI’s partner program leader, Colleen Kapase, told CRN.

“We have advisory firms we’ve been working with so McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Bain—they are getting deep with us. Also the large global system integrators like Accenture are coming on board,” said Kapase, vice president of global strategic partners and ecosystem for OpenAI.

“But also, we have amazing 100- to 150-people companies that are AI-native and really are focused on nothing but AI and transformation. They have just as much of a space and a play and an expertise in our network as the large folks do,” she said. “So there’s room for both.”

OpenAI’s inaugural partner program is a three-tier program with specializations, such as OpenAI Codex, with an up-front $150 million channel investment from the San Franciso-based AI superstar.

Kapase said one key goal is to train 300,000 certified OpenAI consultants by the end of 2026.

Accenture And Bain On OpenAI’s Partner Program

Accenture’s AI leader, Dr. Lan Guan, said by combining OpenAI’s frontier models with Accenture’s industry depth, global delivery scale and experience embedding advanced technology into the core of how organizations operate the two companies will help clients reinvent entire value chains—not just deploy AI.

“Through our partnership with OpenAI, we’re turning AI ambition into enterprisewide transformation at speed and scale,” said Dr. Guan in an email to CRN.

Chuck Whitten, global head of Bain’s Digital Practices and Capabilities, said OpenAI and Bain are helping organizations move from AI dreams to enterprisewide impact.

“We’re proud to be part of OpenAI’s Partner Network and to build on our long-standing partnership that has delivered measurable impact for clients around the world,” Whitten said in an email to CRN. “By combining OpenAI’s frontier AI technology with Bain’s expertise in strategy, technology and enterprise transformation, we help clients deploy and scale AI more effectively, delivering measurable business impact and lasting competitive advantage.”

OpenAI Partners With PwC And Boston Consulting Group

Other OpenAI partners like PwC and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said they were “proud” to be partnering with the company as OpenAI pushes into the channel this year.

"Unlocking AI’s full value takes more than technology, it takes the right strategy, operating model, governance and execution,” said Tyson Cornell, U.S. advisory leader at PwC, in an email to CRN.

Cornell said by combining OpenAI’s frontier capabilities with PwC’s transformation expertise, the companies will help clients build an intelligent enterprise by deploying responsible AI at scale.

“We’re proud to deepen our partnership with OpenAI and accelerate that journey,” Cornell said.

Sylvain Duranton, managing director and senior partner at BCG, said OpenAI frontier AI innovation combined with BCG capabilities and forward-deployed engineering talent will be a win for customers.

“Together, we’re helping clients move beyond pilots to build and deploy applied AI at scale and deliver measurable business impact,” he said. “We’re excited to be a part of the OpenAI Partner Network and extend that transformative impact to more organizations globally.”

OpenAI’s Partner Program Strategy: ‘Quality Versus Quantity’ With ‘High Technical Bar’ To Reach

OpenAI does not have a number in mind for how many partners it wants to on-board in its OpenAI Partner Network.

“In terms of number of partners, I really want to say this is a quality versus quantity game. We are really looking for the capability of these partners who are AI-focused,” Kapase said.

“We’re not looking for quantity; we’re looking for quality with a high bar, AI-focused, transformational oriented, and able to keep up with the pace of OpenAI on how things are evolving and changing quickly,” Kapase said.

The OpenAI Partner Network will officially kick off in July, with the company seeking partners that can build, sell and deliver AI solutions with OpenAI.

Partners can progress through the three-tiered partner program via sales performance, technical capability, co-selling engagements and deployment experience. OpenAI is also piloting a Forward Deployed Experts partner program that will help its top partners better align with OpenAI’s own forward-deployed engineering teams.

“There’s a high technical bar for partners to go through from a training perspective because our customers really want the best,” Kapase said.

Kapase—a longtime channel veteran who led partner programs for Google Cloud, Snowflake, Citrix and VMware over the past 25 years—said the opportunity for channel partners inside the OpenAI Partner Network is “massive.”

“This is a massive opportunity for any partner out there,” she said. “You need to put the right resources that have an engineering mindset, from an AI perspective, and build out focus and build out an OpenAI practice—because the opportunity is real.”