Understanding the modus operandi behind OpenAI's partnerships and acquisitions

OpenAI has recently begun testing advertising on ChatGPT, but there's a catch: brands need to commit at least $200,000 upfront to participate. The ads themselves are subtle, in-line promotional mentions that appear at the end of AI responses. Ask about a destination in Mexico, and you might see a hotel recommendation. Inquire about cuisine, and a specific product could surface.

It's a high-stakes experiment, targeting the kind of high-intent queries that once belonged to Google.

But the real story isn't the ads themselves.

It is also the different industries the company is entering through partnerships and acquisitions in recent years.

Disney, PVH Corp, Swiggy, Morgan Stanley, PhonePe and many others. These aren't traditional tech partners. They're companies from entertainment, fashion, food delivery, finance, and telecommunications. Over the past year, OpenAI has systematically moved into industries far beyond its origins as a conversational AI tool, securing partnerships, making acquisitions, and embedding itself into the operational cores of legacy sectors. The advertising beta is just the latest signal of a broader transformation: ChatGPT is aiming to no longer remain a chatbot.

Fashion & entertainment

OpenAI's industrial strategy came in late 2025, when Disney invested $1 billion into the company and signed a three-year licensing deal. The agreement gave the AI parent’s text-to-video platform, Sora, access to over 200 iconic characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars. Fans can now generate short-form videos featuring Mickey Mouse, Simba, or characters from Frozen and Toy Story, with curated selections available to stream on Disney+.

But the deal goes deeper. Disney is using OpenAI's APIs to build new products for subscribers and has deployed ChatGPT across its global workforce. Industry analysts estimate the integration could reduce animated film production costs by up to 90%.

For Disney, it's a shift from viewing AI as a threat to positioning itself as an innovation leader. For OpenAI, it has access to premium, rights-cleared training data and a real-world creative use case that sidesteps the copyright battles plaguing the video generation space.

The fashion industry has become another focus. In early 2026, PVH Corp., parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, announced it would embed OpenAI's models throughout its global operations.

The brand is using ChatGPT Enterprise to accelerate product design, pulling insights from historical data and emerging trends. On the operational side, it's deploying AI for demand planning and inventory optimisation, aiming to reduce markdowns and avoid overproduction.

This coincides with OpenAI's push into commerce more broadly. A partnership with Shopify integrated checkout capabilities directly into ChatGPT, while Walmart and Target have experimented with AI-powered shopping assistants.

Healthcare & finance

Meanwhile, in healthcare, OpenAI took a different approach. In early 2026, it acquired Torch Health for a reported $100 million. The company’s core technology aggregates fragmented health records from hospitals, labs, wearables, and consumer testing services into a single, AI-readable format.

On a similar foundation, the AI chatbot parent has introduced ChatGPT Health, a specialised workspace where users can upload medical records, interpret lab results, and receive personalised health advice.

In October 2025, it acquired Roi, a personal finance app offering AI investment advice. The two-year-old company brought experience in connecting AI to real-time financial data. Roi shut down after the deal, and its CEO joined OpenAI. The company now aims to build assistants that manage financial decisions autonomously.

Another partnership involves fintech player PhonePe. The collaboration integrates ChatGPT into the consumer app, merchant platform, and app store.

Publications

OpenAI's entry into the news industry has been defined by licensing agreements that replace unauthorised scraping with legal partnerships. Deals with News Corp, Financial Times, The Guardian, Axel Springer, and Vox Media grant ChatGPT access to archives and real-time content. News Corp's agreement alone is reportedly worth over $250 million across five years. The Financial Times deal allows the AI chatbot to pull information directly from published stories, presenting citations and links back to the source.

These partnerships aren't just about training data. Publishers are deploying ChatGPT Enterprise internally to build editorial and business tools. While some argue that these partnerships give increased visibility to the publishers, others oppose by saying the AI parents use their copyright material to train their AI models.

E-commerce & tools

Last month, Indian food delivery giant Swiggy integrated its services into ChatGPT using the Model Context Protocol, allowing users to order groceries or meals through conversational commands. A user can type "Order ingredients for Thai green curry," and the AI browses products, populates a cart, applies coupons, and tracks delivery.

OpenAI acquired Windsurf (formerly Codeium) in May 2025. Windsurf built an integrated development environment where AI generates code from natural-language descriptions. The acquisition gave OpenAI its own developer platform, separate from Microsoft's GitHub Copilot, which uses OpenAI's technology but remains under Microsoft's control.

Other integrations include Canva for design, Spotify for playlists, Zillow for real estate, and Expedia for travel. The AI chatbot is no longer just answering questions; it's facilitating actions.

In late 2025, OpenAI paid $1.1 billion for Statsig, a product experimentation platform founded by former Meta engineers. The company provides A/B testing and feature rollout controls.

Unlike other acquisitions, Statsig continues operating independently and serving outside customers. But its founder now serves as OpenAI's CTO of Applications.

OpenAI acquired Software Applications in October 2025. The company made Sky, an AI assistant for Mac that monitors what users do on their screens and executes tasks across multiple applications. The 12-person team included ex-Apple engineers who built Workflow, the automation app Apple acquired for its Shortcuts feature.

Law & data

OpenAI has also moved aggressively into high-margin professional services. Morgan Stanley uses an internal assistant powered by OpenAI technology that increased document retrieval efficiency for financial advisors from 20% to 80%. The firm also deployed ‘AskResearchGPT,’ built on GPT-4, to synthesise research reports into client-ready insights.

In law, OpenAI partnered with Harvey to build models trained on over 10 billion tokens of legal data. The partnership aims to deliver AI systems that help with tasks requiring complex reasoning, extensive domain knowledge, and capabilities beyond a single model call - such as drafting documents, answering questions about complex litigation scenarios, and identifying material discrepancies between hundreds of contracts.

The pattern across these deals reveals a clear operating logic. OpenAI is aiming to position itself as a foundational intelligence layer, not a standalone product, but infrastructure embedded into the operations of legacy industries.

By securing high-value intellectual property from Disney, health records through Torch, and professional insights from finance and law, the company is aiming to build something that touches nearly every sector of the global economy.

Revenue is scaling alongside this expansion. OpenAI's annual recurring revenue surpassed $20 billion in 2025, following a 3x year-over-year growth curve.

What comes next

The introduction of the $200,000 advertising commitment marks a new revenue diversification phase. OpenAI is no longer just licensing models; it's facilitating commerce, from food delivery to fashion design. The partnerships with Disney, Swiggy, PVH, and Morgan Stanley position brands that are already embedded in ChatGPT's ecosystem as potential advertisers with direct access to high-intent users.

The success of this strategy depends on maintaining trust, particularly in sensitive areas like health and finance. But the infrastructure is already in place.

ChatGPT has moved from answering questions to suggesting choices, from serving information to shaping how industries operate.

The modus operandi seems to be clear: embed intelligence everywhere, secure the partnerships and acquire those that provide data, and build the infrastructure to sustain it all.

What began as a conversational AI tool is becoming something closer to a utility, one that powers everything from animated films to medical diagnostics to financial modelling. And with data centres now under construction, the scale of that ambition is visible.