OpenAI digs in on a fundamental disconnect in new research: AI is ready for primetime, many businesses aren’t

Good morning. AI has officially moved into the mainstream. 

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

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com