OpenAI finds AI ready for primetime—but many businesses aren’t

At last week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar noticed a shift: AI is no longer treated as a future experiment or a side conversation. Instead, world leaders are discussing it alongside geopolitics, energy, and security—as a core piece of economic infrastructure.

But there’s a problem. Most organizations aren’t actually using AI to its full potential. Friar, who joined OpenAI in June 2024, kept hearing the same concern at Davos: a “capability overhang.” In plain terms, it’s a mismatch between what AI can do right now and what companies are actually doing with it. The tools are powerful and ready, but they’re barely integrated into how most businesses work or make decisions. Companies are only scratching the surface.

There’s also new research from OpenAI on capability overhang. You can read more here.

The tech giant is valued at around $500 billion in its most recent completed share sale, with revenue jumping to more than $20 billion in 2025 from $6 billion in 2024. In an interview with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo last week, Friar said, “An IPO isn’t off the table; it’s a question of when.”

OpenAI is now deepening its finance bench. Friar announced yesterday that Ajmere Dale is joining the company as chief accounting officer. Most recently, Ajmere was the chief accounting officer at the fintech Block for almost 10 years. And Cynthia Gaylor was appointed business finance officer of corporate, overseeing corporate finance, long-range planning, capital strategy, special situations and investor relations at OpenAI. 

I had the opportunity to interview Gaylor back in 2021 when she was the CFO at DocuSign. Gaylor started out her career as an investment banker in the technology sector for 18 years at companies including Morgan Stanley. She has also served as head of corporate development at Twitter, and then began a practice as an advisor to CEOs, CFOs, and boards, across their most strategic imperatives. She went from advising the C-suite to becoming a CFO at two different companies. Gaylor was on the board of DocuSign for a couple of years before becoming finance chief. 

“The finance organization is rolling right now,” Friar said in her LinkedIn post. “We are building, shipping, and operating at immense scale, and doing it with rigor, pace, and a strong sense of ownership.”

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Leaderboard

Frank Sluis was appointed CFO of On Holding AG (NYSE: ONON), a premium sportswear brand, effective May 1. Sluis succeeds Martin Hoffmann, who took on an expanded role as sole CEO last year, while continuing his CFO responsibilities. Sluis has more than 25 years of experience. Most recently, he served as CFO for Europe and Indonesia at Ahold Delhaize, a food retail group, a position he has held since 2021. Sluis also previously held finance leadership positions at Reckitt Benckiser and Unilever. 

Sardar Abubakr was appointed CFO of NetSol Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTWK), a provider of software for the asset finance and leasing industry. Roger K. Almond, the company’s current CFO, will remain with NetSol as chief accounting officer, responsible for global accounting operations. Abubakr brings more than two decades of international leadership experience. Most recently, he served as VP of new business ventures and M&A at Jazz, a subsidiary of VEON Group.

Big Deal

Amazon (No. 2 on the Fortune 500) announced on Tuesday that it will close its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go storefronts to refocus investment on growth areas. According to the company’s website, Amazon currently operates 14 Go stores and 58 Amazon Fresh grocery stores. Most locations will close by Feb. 1, though stores in California will remain open through mid-March due to state labor notification requirements. Amazon said it will concentrate on expanding its Whole Foods Market brand and grocery delivery services via Amazon.com.

The company did not disclose how many employees will be affected by the closures but said in the announcement that it is “working whenever possible to help them find roles elsewhere in Amazon, including across our vast operations network.”

“Today’s announcement is an important step forward in Amazon’s broader strategy and should help the company capture incremental share in perishable categories where they have struggled historically,” Wedbush Securities analysts wrote in a Tuesday note. “The reason this announcement is so significant is that Amazon has yet to displace incumbents in the grocery category, at least for perishables.”

Going deeper

“Gold is going up because Trump is talking down the dollar, feeding ‘the narrative of relative U.S. decline,’ UBS fears” is a Fortune article by Jim Edwards.

Edwards writes: “The price of gold hit another new record yesterday, soaring above $5,300. It’s up an astonishing 3% this morning, as measured by the Comex continuous contract. Gold has gained 22.31%, year-to-date. It’s not hard to see why. Gold is outperforming as a safe-haven for investors who are bailing out of assets being dragged down by the falling U.S. dollar.” Read more here. 

Overheard

“While replacing entry-level workers with AI can boost profits in the short term, it will ultimately drain the talent pool and create real vulnerabilities over the long haul.”

—Patrick E. Hopkins, dean at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, writes in a Fortune opinion piece titled, “Coming soon: a lost generation of employee talent?”