OpenAI exec shares how teams turn AI hype into real adoption

OpenAI is offerng a rare look at how its engineers are transforming corporate AI "hype" into actual, high-value deployments.

In a recent podcast, Colin Jarvis, who leads the company's forward-deployed engineering team, revealed how the company embeds specialists directly inside major clients to turn excitement into measurable results.

According to Jarvis, the OpenAI team remains intentionally small, 39 engineers, scaling to 52 by year-end, but is responsible for generating “tens of millions to sometimes the low billions” in value for enterprise partners. 

The model mirrors Palantir’s on-site engineering strategy, emphasizing deep workflow integration rather than surface-level consulting.

Notably, when ChatGPT first debuted, companies were enthusiastic but struggled to translate that enthusiasm into usable systems. 

Jarvis noted that OpenAI quickly learned that embedding engineers within businesses was the only reliable way to build tools employees would actually trust.

 That approach paid off at Morgan Stanley, where after months of testing and refinement, 98% of advisors adopted the GPT-4-powered system.

The team also worked with a European semiconductor company to build an AI agent capable of diagnosing chip failures, cutting down work engineers spent on debugging by as much as 80%.

Jarvis also emphasised that OpenAI’s goal isn’t to sell services, but to build scalable playbooks that make future enterprise deployments faster and more effective. 

He stated that OpenAI believes this embedded, hands-on approach is the key to turning AI excitement into real-world impact.