OpenAI's Enterprise Strategy Has a Name Now: Push, Pull, Partner

Forrester has a name for how OpenAI is winning enterprise accounts, and it’s not “better model.” VP and Principal Analyst Ted Schadler breaks the strategy into three sequential moves: Push, Pull, Partner.

Push is Sam Altman’s public vision for an AI-powered world driving consumer ChatGPT adoption at a scale that positioned OpenAI as the default AI supplier before most enterprises had evaluated alternatives. Pull is what happened next — that consumer momentum carried into workplaces as employees brought ChatGPT to their jobs unprompted, creating bottom-up demand IT didn’t have to generate. Schadler’s addition is the third move, and it’s the newest: Partner. To regain enterprise ground it was losing to Anthropic’s Claude Code and Cowork through 2025 and 2026, OpenAI struck a partnership with IBM, embedding its tools into IBM Consulting Advantage and standing up forward-deployed implementation teams. The deal gets OpenAI access to IBM’s regulated-industry expertise, enterprise-scale testing for Codex, and integration with IBM’s existing stack, including Red Hat and WatsonX Orchestrate.

Schadler’s recommendation to buyers cuts against the vendor narrative: stay skeptical of single-vendor bundling, and maintain independent vendor relationships rather than over-depending on any one AI supplier — even one moving this fast on distribution.

The sequencing has a parallel in how a16z frames early-stage AI go-to-market more broadly: category creators often win with a small number of marquee “lighthouse” logos that make the market legible, then shift to volume-driven “landgrab” tactics once the category no longer needs validating. OpenAI’s arc from consumer virality to employee pull to a systems-integrator partnership reads like that same lighthouse-to-landgrab sequence, run at enterprise scale — with IBM playing the role of the credibility anchor a pure landgrab motion couldn’t buy on its own.

For sellers competing against OpenAI in regulated accounts, the Partner move is the one to watch: it’s the first time OpenAI has needed someone else’s trust to close the gap its own product couldn’t close alone.