OpenAI has appointed Denise Dresser, the current CEO of Slack, as its new Chief Revenue Officer to oversee revenue strategy across enterprise and customer success, as the company reorganizes as a public-benefit corporation to pursue profitability.
Dresser will manage OpenAI’s efforts to generate revenue from its AI offerings, including tools like ChatGPT. This role positions her to address the financial demands of expanding AI infrastructure. OpenAI’s announcement highlights her background in leading technology companies through growth phases, drawing from her tenure at Slack where she navigated sales and customer engagement strategies.
Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of Products, commented on the appointment in the announcement: “We’re on a path to put AI tools into the hands of millions of workers, across every industry.” Simo further elaborated: “Denise has led that kind of shift before, and her experience will help us make AI useful, reliable, and accessible for businesses everywhere.” These statements underscore Dresser’s expected contributions to broadening AI adoption in professional settings.
Simo herself joined OpenAI in May of this year, following her role as CEO of Instacart. Prior to that, she served as the head of Facebook at Meta, where she played a central part in developing the company’s advertising operations. Her expertise in monetization aligns with OpenAI’s current priorities.
The hires of Simo and Dresser reflect OpenAI’s adoption of a Silicon Valley-style strategy for expanding its chatbot business, centered on achieving scale and monetizing AI interactions. Simo’s involvement in Meta’s ads business coincides with reports of OpenAI’s plans to integrate advertisements into conversations with its AI models.
Potential revenue from advertisements represents one avenue for growth, yet Dresser faces substantial operational expenses. OpenAI maintains multiple partnerships for data-center access and has secured commitments to purchase and construct server components for these facilities. The processing of each ChatGPT query incurs direct costs, contributing to the overall financial challenges in scaling the company’s AI products.
