OpenAI's Frontier wants to manage your AI agents - it could upend enterprise software, too

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• OpenAI's Frontier emulates Palantir's usage of forward-deployed AI engineers.
• Frontier promises to besides grip cause information features.
• Like Claude Cowork, Frontier threatens the accepted bundle industry.

OpenAI, which to day has made astir of its wealth from user users of ChatGPT, connected Thursday took a leafage from Palantir's playbook, aiming to determination deeper into endeavor sales. Palantir is arguably the astir palmy endeavor AI bundle company, with gross of much than $4 cardinal annually from authorities and concern clients.

OpenAI unveiled Frontier, a model for deploying endeavor artificial quality agents; the institution said the offering volition assistance companies flooded impediments to deploying agents wrong organizations.

Also: True agentic AI is years distant - here's wherefore and however we get there

"We're introducing Frontier, a caller level that helps enterprises build, deploy, and negociate AI agents that tin bash existent work," said OpenAI successful its property release. The framework, it said, "gives agents the aforesaid skills radical request to win astatine work: shared context, onboarding, hands-on learning with feedback, and wide permissions and boundaries."

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's genitor company, filed an April 2025 suit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights successful grooming and operating its AI systems.)

Borrowing Palantir's usage of forward-deployed engineers

While details are scant, the Frontier attack appears to thin heavy connected "forward-deployed engineers," teams that enactment on-site with customers to tweak the bundle to an organization's circumstantial processes and to incorporated what's learned into ongoing bundle development.

"We brace OpenAI forward-deployed engineers (FDEs) with your teams, moving broadside by broadside to assistance you make the champion practices to physique and tally agents successful production," said OpenAI. "The FDEs besides springiness teams a nonstop transportation to OpenAI Research." According to OpenAI:

As you deploy agents, we larn not conscionable however to amended your systems astir the model. We besides larn however the models themselves request to germinate to beryllium much utile for your work. That feedback loop, from your concern occupation to deployment to probe and back, helps some sides determination faster.

Palantir laminitis and CEO Alex Karp has featured forward-deployed engineers arsenic a cardinal plus that helps the institution to integrate its bundle with customers' processes. "The crushed you extremity up with forward-deployed engineers, particularly successful the beginning, is you person to widen the product," helium said during a keynote code successful September.

The ample connection model, specified arsenic OpenAI's GPT, said Karp, "is a earthy worldly that has to beryllium processed," and is often "over-hyped" arsenic the savior of businesses. It takes engineering to marque it existent successful deployment, helium indicated.

Just this week, Palantir touted a concern with Accenture that volition "deploy Palantir's forward-deployed engineers alongside 2,000+ Palantir-skilled Accenture professionals to accelerate AIP [Palantir AI platform] deployment crossed healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing, user goods, and fiscal services."

Also: Enterprises are not prepared for a satellite of malicious AI agents

OpenAI's determination from being simply an LLM supplier to selling a level for cause deployment volition doubtless bring it into struggle with Palantir, C3.ai, and different commercialized bundle firms that person spent years deploying AI with an manufacture focus.

Frontier is presently being utilized by a "limited acceptable of customers," said OpenAI, including HP, Inc., Intuit, Oracle, Thermo Fisher, and Uber. It volition go disposable much broadly  "over the adjacent fewer months," the institution said.

Talking up ontologies and agentic security

Frontier besides appears to get from Palantir's attack to learning the specifics of industries. Frontier, said OpenAI, volition link assorted information sources with what it describes arsenic "a semantic furniture for the endeavor that each AI coworkers tin notation to run and pass effectively."

That echoes the ontologies that Palantir has promoted arsenic a unsocial asset, offering a model for however AI understands the cardinal concern presumption of an industry.

Also: While Google and OpenAI conflict for exemplary dominance, Anthropic is softly winning the endeavor AI race

At the aforesaid time, OpenAI is intelligibly moving into the domain of cybersecurity and authorization. The Frontier model identifies and authorizes AI agents, OpenAI said.

"Frontier makes definite AI coworkers run wrong wide boundaries. Each AI coworker has its ain identity, with explicit permissions and guardrails. That makes it imaginable to usage them confidently successful delicate and regulated environments."

Traditional cybersecurity vendors specified arsenic Palo Alto Networks person told enterprises that they volition beryllium the ones to assistance identify, authenticate, and assistance permissions and spot restrictions connected AI agents.

Also: Claude Cowork automates analyzable tasks for you present - astatine your ain risk

Threatening accepted bundle sales

Frontier is some an accidental and a menace for existing commercialized bundle firms specified arsenic Palantir and Palo Alto Networks. On the 1 hand, it is highly apt that OpenAI volition request to spouse with those firms to adjacent its ain acquisition spread successful endeavor sales. That would necessitate OpenAI to bring those vendors into its deals to marque up for what Frontier lacks.

On the different hand, Frontier is akin to different programme that has formed a shadiness implicit accepted software, the Claude Cowork program from Anthropic. Like Cowork, Frontier could marque accepted bundle packages little important than ample connection models, which volition service arsenic the front-end idiosyncratic interface for years to come.

Also: I fto Anthropic's Claude Cowork escaped connected my files, and it was some superb and scary

By replacing the idiosyncratic interface of business, Frontier and Cowork could marque each commercialized bundle bundle little important arsenic a prime for concern owners. That imaginable has pb to a sell-off successful caller weeks of bundle institution stocks, which Bloomberg has labeled the "SaaSpocalypse."