OpenAI’s Zoph Gambit: Enterprise Revival in 2026

OpenAI is ramping up its commercial assault on corporate America, tapping Barret Zoph—a researcher who rejoined the company amid high-profile drama—to helm enterprise sales. The appointment, detailed in an internal memo just a week after Zoph’s return, signals a sharp pivot as OpenAI grapples with slipping market share in business AI deployments. With rivals like Anthropic and Google gaining ground, Chief Executive Sam Altman and his team are betting on Zoph’s technical expertise to close multimillion-dollar deals and reclaim dominance.

Zoph, previously vice president of post-training inference at OpenAI from September 2022 to October 2024, left for Mira Murati’s startup Thinking Machines Lab as co-founder and CTO. His abrupt departure from there—amid allegations of unethical conduct and a reported office relationship—sparked a Silicon Valley saga. OpenAI’s CEO of Applications Fidji Simo swiftly welcomed Zoph back, along with researchers Luke Metz and Sam Schoenholz, dismissing concerns in a staff memo: “We do not share these concerns.” TechCrunch first highlighted the enterprise push, citing the memo.

Zoph’s Turbulent Path Back to OpenAI

Details of Zoph’s exit from Thinking Machines paint a picture of internal strife. On January 12, Zoph, Metz, and Schoenholz confronted Murati, pushing for Zoph to gain more technical control amid stalled product releases and failed acquisition talks with Meta, according to sources. Murati fired Zoph two days later, but OpenAI had been negotiating his return since October. The New York Times reported Zoph had been in secret talks with Altman. WIRED noted prior tensions over an alleged relationship with another employee, which eroded trust. Despite the controversy, Zoph now reports directly to Simo, positioning him to bridge research and sales.

Prior to OpenAI, Zoph spent six years at Google as a research scientist, co-authoring key papers on neural architecture search. His OpenAI tenure focused on alignment, tool use, evaluations, ChatGPT, search, multi-modality, and models for the API. This background makes him a rare fit for enterprise, where technical credibility sells complex deployments. WIRED described OpenAI’s moves as a “raid” on Murati’s lab.

Enterprise Market Share Erosion Spurs Action

OpenAI launched ChatGPT Enterprise in 2023, boasting over 5 million business users including SoftBank, Target, and Lowe’s. Yet its large language model usage share in enterprises plunged from 50% in 2023 to 27% by late 2025, per a Menlo Ventures report. Anthropic surged to 40% from 32% mid-year, while Google’s Gemini held steady at 21% after a fall 2025 launch. Altman flagged Gemini’s encroachment in an internal memo, per reports.

The reorganization assigns Brad Lightcap to commercial functions and Vijaye Raji to ads, aiming to align research, product, and engineering under Simo. Zoph’s role targets finance, biotech, and other sectors via API wins. OpenAI claims 1 million business customers, with Enterprise seats up 9x year-over-year, but consumer familiarity accelerates pilots. The Information broke the memo details.

2026: Year of Practical Deployment

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar outlined 2026 as the year of “practical adoption,” prioritizing real-world use in health, science, and enterprise where “better intelligence translates directly into better outcomes.” OpenAI ended 2025 with $20 billion revenue but $1.4 trillion in compute commitments to Oracle, AMD, and Broadcom over eight years. Friar emphasized usage-based pricing scaling with value delivered. OpenAI’s blog via CNBC coverage stressed closing the gap between AI potential and daily application.

Partnerships underscore the push: an expanded multi-year deal with ServiceNow embeds OpenAI models for customers. Databricks integrates frontier intelligence into enterprise data workflows for agents. OpenAI for Countries pitches governments on data centers and AI in education, health, disaster prep. These moves counter enterprise hurdles like integration costs and governance. Yahoo Finance noted Friar’s enterprise focus.

Talent Wars Fuel Competitive Edge

Zoph’s return bolsters post-training capabilities amid talent battles. OpenAI rehired him to fortify the applications unit, racing to turn models into sticky products. Analysts see this as an “aggressive commercial pivot.” With Anthropic favored by coders and Google’s steady gains, OpenAI must prove monetization outpaces compute costs. Dataconomy framed it as addressing market challenges.

Enterprise growth funds frontier research, but 2026 tests if Zoph can convert technical prowess into revenue. As Friar wrote, costs now scale with outcomes, pressuring sales teams. OpenAI’s infrastructure bets position it for scale, but execution under Zoph will define its corporate foothold.