What are OpenAI's Newly-Formed 'Frontier Alliances'?

OpenAI contends that the limiting factor for seeing value from AI in enterprises is how agents are built and run.

It's why the artificial intelligence giant has introduced Frontier, a platform for building, deploying and managing AI co-workers that carry out real work across the enterprise. These AI co-workers are software agents, meaning systems that act with a degree of autonomy to complete tasks across tools and data sources.

An AI co-worker has the ability to resolve a customer issue end-to-end, pulling context from the CRM and storing records of customer interactions. It checks company policies, files the update in the right system and escalates only when needed.

In conjunction with this, OpenAI has unveiled Frontier Alliances with Boston Consulting Group (BCG)⁠, McKinsey, Accenture and Capgemini to help customers shape their strategy, integrate systems, optimise workflows and scale deployments worldwide.

Over the coming months, the tech and consulting giants are set to work alongside OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team, ensuring research and product expertise is combined with transformation experience.

AI and change management expertise

McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group each bring immense experience in helping leadership teams decide howe embed AI and drive adoption. 

McKinsey is accustomed to leading enterprise-wide operating transformation, helping leadership teams align on priorities, redesign operating models and embed intelligence into everyday work.

Through QuantumBlack, its AI arm, the firm combines deep technical expertise with industry insight. QuantumBlack brings together data science, engineering and sector knowledge to help global clients redesign processes and integrate AI agents across high-value workflows – the critical sequences of tasks that drive core business outcomes.

"CEOs and business leaders face unprecedented challenges in capturing value with agentic AI," comments Bob Sternfels, Global Managing Partner at McKinsey & Company. "To scale, they must rewire their businesses, reimagining domains and evolving how their people work, build capabilities and lead change.

"McKinsey's deep domain expertise and experience with high-impact tech transformations, infused with OpenAI's leading Frontier technology, will help clients close this gap and capture real value."

BCG, meanwhile, offers a strong track record in enterprise transformation, helping organisations scale AI by aligning strategy with operating model redesign, governance and change management.

Through BCG X, its tech build and design unit, BCG supports clients in driving adoption of AI across critical workflows. BCG X focuses on product development and technical delivery, translating strategy into working systems and ensuring AI transformations reflect how the business operates and deliver measurable value.

Christoph Schweizer, CEO at Boston Consulting Group, adds: "AI alone does not drive transformation. It must be linked to strategy, built into redesigned processes and adopted at scale with aligned incentives and culture to deliver sustained outcomes.

"Our expanded partnership combines OpenAI’s Frontier platform with BCG’s deep industry, functional and tech expertise and BCG X’s build-and-scale capabilities to drive measurable impact with safeguards from day one."

End-to-end transformation

Accenture and Capgemini are tasked with advising on strategy and helping to wire Frontier into the systems and data that enterprises run on, paying particularly close attention to security and reliability.

Accenture designs and delivers end-to-end enterprise AI solutions across the entire customer lifecycle – from strategy and data architecture modernisation to scaled deployment, change management and ongoing operations – driving sustained adoption and measurable business impact. It combines deep industry expertise with proven assets and experience operating in environments where security, reliability and interoperability are mission-critical.

Accenture has already equipped tens of thousands of its professionals with ChatGPT Enterprise, representing the largest cohort upskilled through OpenAI certifications.

“We’re excited to deepen our work with OpenAI as a Frontier Alliance partner to help clients turn AI into real outcomes," says Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture. 

"Business transformation requires more than great models – it requires end-to-end execution across technology, data, security and change management. Together, we’ll help organisations operationalise AI across the enterprise – responsibly and at scale."

Capgemini, OpenAI's final Frontier Alliance partner, is in the busines of leveraging deep sector expertise, industry solutions and tech-driven capabilities to accelerate AI-powered business transformation. Its implementation experience spans cloud, applications, data and modernisation, ensuring AI foundations are resilient and outcomes measurable.

Capgemini is set to help clients clients embed Frontier across their organisations and establish the operating processes needed to run AI agents consistently at scale.

Aiman Ezzat, CEO at Capgemini, notes: "AI is reshaping every industry and we intend to lead that transformation. Partnering with OpenAI on Frontier positions us at the cutting edge of what’s possible and enables us to deliver breakthrough innovation faster than ever before."