OpenAI to acquire the team behind executive coaching AI tool Convogo

OpenAI started the new year with another acquisition hire. The AI ​​giant acquired the team behind Convogo, a business software platform that helps executive coaches, consultants, talent leaders and HR teams automate and improve leadership assessments and feedback reports.

An OpenAI spokesperson said the company did not acquire Convogo’s IP or technology, but hired the team to work on its “AI cloud efforts.” The three co-founders — Matt Cooper, Evan Cater, and Mike Gillett — will join OpenAI as part of what sources familiar with the matter called an all-stock deal.

Convogo products will be wound down.

It originally started as a “weekend hackathon” sparked by a question from Cooper’s mother, who is an executive coach: could an AI tool automate the task of writing reports so he could spend more time training the humans he loves? Over the past two years, Convogo has helped “thousands” of coaches and partnered with “the world’s top leadership development companies,” per an email containing news of the acquisition sent by Convogo.

In the email, the team wrote that the real problem they found in their work was how to bridge the gap between what each new model release could do and how to translate it into real results.

“We are now even more convinced that the key to bridging the gap lies in a purpose-designed experience, like the one we’ve built for coaches at Convogo,” the founders wrote. “That’s why we’re excited to join OpenAI to continue our work to make AI accessible and useful for professionals in every industry.”

The Convogo acqui-hire marks OpenAI’s ninth acquisition in a year, per PitchBook data. In almost all of these acquisitions, the product is folded into the OpenAI ecosystem – as in the case skyAI interface for Mac, or Statelyproduct testing company – or completely shut down when the team joins OpenAI – as in the case Roi, Context.aiand Crossing Minds.

The Convogo deal also signals that OpenAI, like its competitors, is using M&A as a talent and capability accelerator. The main exception to this rule is the OpenAI acquisition Product io Jonny Ivewhich continues the product roadmap as the two companies work together to create AI hardware.