OpenAI’s Quiet Power Move: Why Executive AI Is Suddenly a Priority

OpenAI has begun the new year with another strategic acqui-hire, announcing that it will acquire the team behind Convogo, an AI-powered business software platform designed to support executive coaches, consultants, talent leaders, and HR teams. 

Convogo’s product focused on automating leadership assessments and streamlining feedback reports, helping professionals reduce administrative workload while improving the quality of insights delivered to clients. While the acquisition continues OpenAI’s active expansion strategy, the company clarified that it is not purchasing Convogo’s intellectual property or technology, but rather bringing the team itself into OpenAI to contribute to its broader AI cloud initiatives (TechCrunch; Yahoo Finance).

According to an OpenAI spokesperson, Convogo’s three co-founders, Matt Cooper, Evan Cater, and Mike Gillett, will join OpenAI as part of what has been described as an all-stock or equity-based deal. As part of the transition, Convogo’s product will be fully wound down and discontinued. This approach mirrors several of OpenAI’s past acquisitions, where teams were absorbed and products either folded into the ecosystem or shut down entirely. Examples include Sky, an AI interface for Mac, and Statsig, a product testing firm that became part of OpenAI’s platform, as well as Roi, Context.ai, and Crossing Minds, which were discontinued once their teams joined the company (TechCrunch; Mezha).

Convogo’s origin story reflects a practical, human-centered approach to applying artificial intelligence. The startup began as a weekend hackathon inspired by a question from Cooper’s mother, who works as an executive coach. She wondered whether AI could automate the time-consuming process of writing assessment reports, allowing coaches to focus more on meaningful human interaction. Over the past two years, Convogo evolved from that initial experiment into a platform used by thousands of coaches and partnered with what the company described as the world’s top leadership development firms (Yahoo Finance; Mezha).

In a letter shared with users announcing the acquisition, the Convogo team highlighted a key insight gained through their work: the real challenge in AI adoption is not model capability alone, but translating rapid advances in AI into tangible, real-world outcomes. Each new model release brings powerful possibilities, but without thoughtful design and purpose-built user experiences, those capabilities often fail to deliver practical value. Convogo’s founders emphasized that bridging this gap requires carefully crafted tools that align AI outputs with professional workflows, particularly in people-focused fields like leadership coaching (TechCrunch; Yahoo Finance).

This philosophy appears closely aligned with OpenAI’s broader direction. The Convogo acquisition marks OpenAI’s ninth acquisition within a single year, underscoring how aggressively the company is using mergers and acquisitions as a way to accelerate talent acquisition and expand internal expertise. Like many of its competitors, OpenAI is increasingly relying on small, specialized teams to strengthen its capabilities across applied AI, cloud infrastructure, and product design. One notable exception to this pattern is OpenAI’s acquisition of Jonny Ive’s io Products, which continues to operate with an active product roadmap as the companies collaborate on developing AI-focused hardware (TechCrunch; Yahoo Finance).

By bringing the Convogo team into its ranks, OpenAI signals a continued emphasis on making AI more accessible, usable, and impactful across professional industries. While Convogo as a standalone product will no longer exist, its founding vision and team will contribute to OpenAI’s ongoing efforts to close the gap between cutting-edge AI models and the real-world experiences of the people who rely on them every day.

This article was written by the Covertly.AI team. Covertly.AI is a secure, anonymous AI chat that protects your privacy. Connect to advanced AI models without tracking, logging, or exposure of your data. Whether you’re an individual who values privacy or a business seeking enterprise-grade data protection, Covertly.AI helps you stay secure and anonymous when using AI. With Covertly.AI, you get seamless access to all popular large language models - without compromising your identity or data privacy.

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Works Cited

TechCrunch. “OpenAI to Acquire the Team Behind Executive Coaching AI Tool Convogo.” TechCrunch, 8 Jan. 2026, https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/08/openai-to-acquire-the-team-behind-executive-coaching-ai-tool-convogo/.

Yahoo Finance. “OpenAI to Acquire the Team Behind Executive Coaching AI Tool Convogo.” Yahoo Finance, 8 Jan. 2026, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openai-acquire-team-behind-executive-181114830.html.

Mezha. “OpenAI Acquires Convogo to Enhance AI Leadership Coaching Team.” Mezha, 2026, https://mezha.net/eng/bukvy/openai-acquires-convogo-to-enhance-ai-leadership-coaching-team/.

Windows Central. “OpenAI Launches Two GPT Models; They’re Not GPT-5 but They Run Locally on Snapdragon PCs and NVIDIA RTX GPUs.” Windows Central, https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/openai-chatgpt/openai-launches-two-gpt-models-theyre-not-gpt-5-but-they-run-locally-on-snapdragon-pcs-and-nvidia-rtx-gpus.

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