OpenAI will hire the founding team of Convogo, an AI-based leadership development platform, in its first merger-and-acquisition move of the year, TechCrunch reported on Jan. 8.
Convogo provides an automated leadership assessment and feedback solution for executive coaches, consultants and HR teams.
An OpenAI spokesperson said the company plans to hire the founding team, not Convogo’s IP or technology, and deploy them on an AI cloud project.
Under the deal, Convogo co-founders Matt Cooper, Evan Carter and Mike Gillett will join OpenAI, and the Convogo product will be phased out gradually.
Convogo started as a weekend hackathon project after Cooper’s mother suggested automating AI-based report writing. It then worked with thousands of coaches over two years and built partnerships with leadership development companies. But the founding team decided to join OpenAI after concluding that turning advances in AI models into tangible business outcomes was a bigger challenge.
The deal is OpenAI’s ninth acquisition in the past year.
Chi-gyu Hwang
delight@d-today.co.kr