OpenAI Launches Frontier, an Enterprise Platform to Build and Manage AI Agents

OpenAI has launched Frontier, an enterprise platform designed to let organizations build, deploy, and manage AI agents that can operate across their existing business software. Announced on February 5, 2026, the platform marks OpenAI's most ambitious push yet into the enterprise market — and a direct challenge to the traditional SaaS model.

Key Highlights

• Frontier is an open platform that supports agents built by OpenAI, enterprises themselves, and third-party vendors
• The platform connects to enterprise systems like CRMs, data warehouses, and internal applications, giving AI agents shared business context
• Fortune 500 early adopters include Uber, Intuit, State Farm, and Thermo Fisher Scientific, with Oracle and HP also onboard. Ecosystem partners include Clay Labs, Ambience Healthcare, and other startups.

How Frontier Works

At its core, Frontier acts as what OpenAI calls a "semantic layer for the enterprise." Rather than requiring companies to build custom integrations for every AI tool, the platform provides a unified layer that connects databases, CRM tools, HR systems, ticketing platforms, and internal applications.

Users describe tasks in natural language through a chat interface similar to ChatGPT, and the system creates agents capable of automating those tasks. Agents can navigate applications, execute workflows, and make decisions autonomously — all without requiring manual user logins to underlying systems.

The platform is built around four core pillars:

• Business Context: Connects enterprise data sources so AI agents can reference the same institutional knowledge as human employees, building durable memory over time
• Agent Execution: Enables multiple agents to work together in parallel across complex workflows
• Security and Governance: Enterprise-grade identity and access management (IAM) with scoped permissions for each agent
• Learning and Optimization: Built-in evaluation loops that let agents improve with experience, with monitoring dashboards tracking metrics like ticket volume, success rates, and even agent accuracy

A Skills System allows user-created extensions to handle multi-step tasks — for example, pre-packaged Kubernetes configuration scripts that let agents spin up container clusters on command.

Impact on the SaaS Industry

The launch has sent ripples through the software industry. According to Fortune, the announcement — combined with the recent rollout of Anthropic's Claude Cowork plugins earlier that week — has "spooked investors" in traditional SaaS companies. Shares of Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, SAP, and even Microsoft saw pressure as analysts considered the implications.

The core concern: if AI agents can execute workflows across business software without human logins, the per-seat licensing model that underpins most enterprise software companies could become obsolete. An AI agent that can update a CRM, file an HR request, and generate a financial report doesn't need three separate software subscriptions.

Fidji Simo, CEO of Applications at OpenAI, addressed the competitive dynamics directly: "Every CEO has asked me, where is this all going? I tell them that it's about humans and AI collaborating on one platform." She emphasized that Frontier embraces existing enterprise vendors rather than replacing them.

A New Model: GPT-5.3-Codex

Alongside Frontier, OpenAI also introduced GPT-5.3-Codex, a new model optimized for coding and agent workflows. The model generates responses 25% faster than its predecessor and set new records on the SWE-Bench Pro and Terminal-Bench programming benchmarks. On the OSWorld benchmark for online research and file editing tasks, it scored 64.7% — a 26.5% improvement over the previous generation.

What Sets Frontier Apart

Unlike Salesforce's Agentforce, which embeds agents within its CRM ecosystem, or Microsoft's Copilot Agents, which operate within the Microsoft 365 suite, Frontier positions itself as a generalist platform that sits on top of every system. This vendor-neutral approach could prove attractive to enterprises already juggling dozens of software tools.

OpenAI is also deploying forward-deployed engineers to help customers develop best practices — a hands-on approach more common in developer-focused startups than in AI research labs.

What's Next

Frontier is currently available to a limited set of customers, with broader availability planned over the coming months. Pricing has not been publicly disclosed — OpenAI's Chief Revenue Officer declined to discuss specifics at the launch event, suggesting a customized enterprise sales model rather than self-serve pricing.

For enterprises evaluating their AI strategy, Frontier represents a significant shift: the AI company best known for ChatGPT is now building the infrastructure for AI agents to become full-fledged digital coworkers.

Source: Fortune | SiliconANGLE | TechCrunch