OpenAI is intensifying its push into the enterprise market with a strategic leadership shift aimed at capturing more business revenue by 2026. The company has appointed Barret Zoph to lead its enterprise sales and strategy efforts, according to reporting from The Information, citing an internal memo. TechCrunch has reached out to OpenAI for confirmation and additional details. Zoph rejoins OpenAI after stepping down from Thinking Machine Labs, the AI startup co-founded by former OpenAI executive Mira Murati, where he served as co-founder and chief technology officer since October 2024. The circumstances surrounding his departure remain unclear, with speculation about whether he left voluntarily or was let go, possibly with an intent to return to OpenAI. Previously, Zoph held the role of vice president of post-training inference at OpenAI from September 2022 to October 2024. His new position marks a significant shift in focus, as OpenAI looks to strengthen its enterprise offerings amid growing competition. OpenAI launched ChatGPT Enterprise in 2023—well ahead of rivals—positioning itself as a leader in AI for business. The product now boasts over 5 million business users and counts major companies like SoftBank, Target, and Loewe among its clients. However, despite this early lead, OpenAI’s market share in enterprise large language model usage has declined sharply. According to a December report from VC firm Menlo Ventures, Anthropic now holds a dominant 40% share of enterprise LLM usage, up from 32% in July. Google’s Gemini has seen steady growth, increasing from 20% to 21% over the same period. In contrast, OpenAI’s share has dropped from 50% in 2023 to 27% by the end of 2025—raising concerns within the company. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently expressed worries in an internal memo about Google Gemini’s growing traction, signaling the urgency of the situation. Enterprise expansion is now a top priority for 2026, as confirmed by CFO Sarah Friar in a recent blog post. To bolster its enterprise strategy, OpenAI has also announced an expanded multi-year partnership with ServiceNow, giving ServiceNow’s customers direct access to OpenAI’s AI models. This move underscores the company’s commitment to deepening its presence in the corporate world and regaining ground in a rapidly evolving market.