The OpenAI Frontier Playbook
What It Is, What It Costs, Whether You're Ready, and How to Get Started
Overview
OpenAI wants to be the operating system for your AI workforce. Frontier launched February 5, 2026, and the enterprise sales machine is already running. This is not a product overview. It is a decision framework for CIOs, CTOs, and business leaders who need to evaluate the platform, build internal approval, and avoid the governance failures that Gartner predicts will kill 40% of agentic AI projects by 2027. Inside: what Frontier actually is (four pillars), three deployment patterns, early adopter results from HP, Intuit, Oracle, State Farm, and Uber, the five challenges executives need to see, a competitive landscape comparison against Salesforce Agentforce, Microsoft Copilot, Google Vertex AI, LangChain, and Kore.ai, a complete internal approval methodology including stakeholder mapping and objection handling, and a 90-day readiness plan to get your organization ready before engaging OpenAI.
Key Takeaways
- 1Frontier is OpenAI's enterprise platform for AI agents that function as AI coworkers, not chatbots, built on four pillars: Business Context, Agent Execution, Evaluation and Optimization, and Enterprise Security and Governance.
- 2Three deployment patterns define how enterprises use Frontier: AI Teammates (individual productivity), Business Process Agents (cross-system workflow orchestration), and Strategic Project Agents (multi-department initiatives).
- 3Early adopters including HP, Intuit, Oracle, State Farm, and Uber report production results: 97% cycle time reduction in manufacturing, 90%+ more customer-facing time for sales, and $1B+ revenue impact from a 5% output gain in energy.
- 4Most enterprises are not ready: the Connectivity Gap (fragmented data), Semantic Gap (business definitions in tribal knowledge), and Experience Gap (workflow knowledge in people's heads) must be resolved before agents can operate reliably.
- 5Gartner predicts 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by 2027. Five challenges executives must navigate: data readiness, Forward Deployed Engineer dependency, governance gaps, platform maturity, and change management.
- 6A 90-day readiness plan gets organizations from assessment to engagement: Map and Clean (days 1-30), Audit and Govern (days 31-60), Package and Engage (days 61-90). Arrive at the demo with use cases, data readiness, and the right stakeholders.
What's Inside
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