OpenAI to acquire the team behind executive coaching AI tool Convogo

OpenAI is kicking off the new year with yet another acqui-hire. The AI giant is acquiring the team behind Convogo, a business software platform that helps executive coaches, consultants, talent leaders, and HR teams automate and improve leadership assessments and feedback reporting. 

An OpenAI spokesperson said the company is not acquiring Convogo’s IP or technology, but rather hiring the team to work on its “AI cloud efforts.” The three co-founders — Matt Cooper, Evan Cater, and Mike Gillett — will join OpenAI as part of what a source familiar with the matter called an all-stock deal.

Convogo’s product will be wound down. 

The startup began as a “weekend hackathon” sparked by a question by Cooper’s mother, who is an executive coach: Could an AI tool automate the drudgery of report writing so she could spend more time on the human coaching work she loves? Over the past two years, Convogo has helped “thousands” of coaches and partnered with the “world’s top leadership development firms,” per an email bearing news of the acquisition sent by Convogo. 

In the email, the team wrote that the real problem they uncovered in their work is how to bridge the gap between what is possible with each new model release and how to translate that into real-world outcomes. 

“We’re convinced now more than ever that the key to bridging that gap lies in thoughtful, purpose-built experiences, like what we’ve built for coaches at Convogo,” the founders wrote. “That’s why we’re thrilled to join OpenAI to continue our work of making AI accessible and useful to professionals in every industry.”

The Convogo acqui-hire marks OpenAI’s ninth acquisition in the span of a year, per PitchBook data. In nearly all of those acquisitions, the product was either folded into OpenAI’s ecosystem — as in the case of Sky, the AI interface for Mac, or Statsig, a product testing firm — or completely shut down as the team joined OpenAI, as in the cases of Roi, Context.ai, and Crossing Minds. 

The Convogo deal also signals that OpenAI, like its competitors, is using M&A as a talent and capability accelerator. The main exception to that rule is OpenAI’s acquisition of Jonny Ive’s io Products, which is continuing its product roadmap as the two companies work together to create a piece of AI hardware.