OpenAI tries the consulting path with 'Presence', charging enterprises boots-on-the-ground prices to deploy agents

Having popularized AI with the cheapskate masses, OpenAI has turned its attention to enterprise customers who might actually pay for its services. The debt-fueled maker of frontier models on Wednesday announced the debut of Presence, a web service designed to make it easier for enterprises to deploy AI agents for a handful of common business tasks. "Today, Presence supports real-time experiences across voice and chat, such as customer support, outbound sales, and high-risk internal workflows," the company said in a blog post provided to The Register. "A customer might use it to resolve a billing issue - from understanding the request and verifying the customer to looking up account information, applying company policy, and taking an approved action." Presence lets companies set policies and governance controls to determine how agents behave, so that orgs can have some degree of reassurance that AI banter will remain polite, professional, and pertinent to the task at hand. The control interface includes an agent editor, an agent playground, and a tool for simulating how an agent handles tasks like customer refunds, order status queries, account deletion, and other administrative interactions. Rather than releasing another self-service API, OpenAI is making Presence available through its consulting arm, the OpenAI Deployment Company and Forward Deployed Engineers, a tech installation workforce that debuted last year and was bolstered by the acquisition of consultancy Tomoro in May. "Deployments are led by OpenAI Forward Deployed Engineers and select global systems integrators," OpenAI said. "Presence is not yet available as a self-serve product." OpenAI insists it has been dogfooding Presence, which now runs its AI English phone support channel. "It can understand open-ended requests, verify a caller's identity when needed, use relevant account context, and take approved actions - including resolving billing issues, making account changes, and processing eligible refunds," the company said. "When a request requires human support, it can bring in a person." That may occur more frequently than OpenAI would like. Tech consultancy Gartner last month predicted that by 2027, half of organizations that were planning to shift customer service to AI will abandon those plans. "While AI offers significant potential to transform customer service, it is not a panacea," said Kathy Ross, senior director analyst for the Gartner customer service and support practice, in a statement. "The human touch remains irreplaceable in many interactions, and organizations must balance technology with human empathy and understanding." Undeterred by Gartner's skepticism, SoftBank, which is so enthusiastic about OpenAI's prospects that it has committed $60 billion to the AI biz, appears to be enthusiastic about AI's appeal for customer service. "Through our collaboration with OpenAI, we are exploring how Presence can enable trusted customer agents that communicate naturally, connect to the processes needed to resolve requests, and represent SoftBank consistently across customer interactions," said Tadahisa Murakami, VP and head of SoftBank's data and digital transformation division, in remarks provided to The Register. "Our frontline teams have rated the agent's Japanese-language conversations highly for their natural and accurate quality." One reason SoftBank might be optimistic about Presence is that it costs actual money, which is vital as OpenAI attempts to cover the costs of its massive datacenter buildout commitments and work towards eventual profitability. "During this limited GA phase, deployments are scoped individually based on each customer's use case and implementation needs," an OpenAI spokesperson said. "Broader pricing details to come as availability expands." Presence is available to eligible enterprise customers, but OpenAI insists it will continue to support existing voice customers who access its models via API. (R)