OpenAI Wants a Billion-Dollar Consulting Practice, Too

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Someone just spent $236,000,000 on a painting. Here’s why it matters for your wallet.

Late last year, a Klimt sold for the highest price ever paid for modern art at auction.

An outlier sure, but it wasn't a fluke. U.S. auction sales grew 23.1% in 2025. The $1-5mm segment even grew 40.8% YoY.

Meanwhile, Apollo’s chief economist Torsten Slok said to expect ‘zero in return in the S&P 500 over the coming decade.’

So, that's where it gets interesting.

Each environment is unique, but after dot-com, post war and contemporary art grew about 24% annually for a decade. After 2008, about 11% for 12 years.

It’s also had near-zero correlation with the S&P 500 since ‘95.*

Now, Masterworks lets you invest in shares of artworks featuring legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso.

• $1.3 billion invested across over 500 artworks.

• 28 sales to date. 

• Net annualized returns on sold works held 12 months+ like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8%.

Shares can sell quickly, but my subscribers can skip the waitlist:

Skip the waitlist

^{*Investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. See important Reg A disclosures at masterworks.com/cd.}

OpenAI Wants a Consulting Practice, Too

OpenAI is launching the OpenAI Deployment Company, a new business unit built around getting AI into real customer workflows. The company says it is acquiring Tomoro and starting with more than $4 billion in initial investment to embed forward deployed engineers inside enterprise systems. That is a notable shift in posture -- from shipping models to owning the messy middle where software actually gets used.

The strategic point is simple: the next AI fight is not only about who has the best model. It is about who can make AI work inside security reviews, legacy systems, compliance teams, and the daily habits of real businesses. If this unit gets traction, expect OpenAI to look less like a model vendor and more like a deployment partner. Watch which customers adopt first, how the service is packaged, and whether rivals answer with their own integration arms.

Tom’s Take

Anthropic did literally the same thing earlier this month. We can only assume that OpenAI was planning this for a while longer (although it would be very Sam Altman to throw $4 billion at something just because Anthropic did that something.)

Most likely, Anthropic just beat OpenAI to the punch. Either way, two big AI companies doing the same thing indicates that this is the direction the industry is moving.

Building models only gets you so far. Actually getting enterprises to build your AI deeply into the systems is when really impactful things start to happen.

I’ll have a new article on a similar topic coming out later this week. Stay tuned!

Other AI News

• Google says Android is moving toward an intelligence system, with Gemini taking on more task automation across apps and devices. Read the developer note on the Android developer blog -- this could change what phone software is for, not just how it looks.

• OpenAI launched Daybreak, a cyber defense platform that connects models, Codex, and security workflows for code review, threat modeling, patching, and verification. It is a sign that frontier AI is moving deeper into security ops, where the upside is real and the governance questions are unavoidable.

• Google is updating AI Mode and AI Overviews to surface more source links, original sources, and richer previews. That is good news for anyone who wants the web to stay visible inside AI search -- and not just get swallowed by it.

Buy This

I asked the company BougeRV to send a car cooler for me to test, and they sent me an ultra-powerful, motor-driven wagon instead.

Turns out it’s very useful. You load it with 200+ pounds of stuff, push a button, and a motor pushes the whole thing along at a brisk walking pace, so you don’t have to lug the stuff in it.

If you’re constantly yanking a wagon up hills for a picnic, across grass for soccer practices, or onto the beach, this will make your life a lot easier.

I’m obligated to tell you that people can’t ride in it like a Go Kart, and to assure you that if they did decide to ride in it, that would be no fun at all for them and certainly wouldn’t make a really hilarious video to send to their family members.

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Today's Strangest AI

South Korea ordained a robot monk named Gabi. The image in the linked article is exactly as strange as it sounds -- robotics, religion, and ritual all sharing the same room.