As AI models grow more powerful, the real question for businesses is how to actually use them. Now, a wave of new ventures is betting that helping companies deploy AI is where the real money lies. Anthropic, the lab behind Claude, has launched Ode, a $1.5 billion AI implementation company backed by Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs. It’s a clear signal that frontier labs see winning enterprise customers as a problem of execution, not just engineering.

Ode was born from a gap Blackstone spotted when trying to bring AI to its own portfolio companies. Large consulting firms and small boutiques were struggling to deliver. One standout was Fractional AI, a startup that had been working with OpenAI. The joint venture acquired Fractional, and its team now forms the core of Ode. The company currently employs 100 engineers who work closely with Anthropic’s applied team to build custom systems for each client. CEO Chris Taylor, a Fractional co-founder, says the goal is to become a “scaled boutique” that doesn’t sacrifice quality during hypergrowth.

Ode operates on a “Claude-first” principle but will use rival models when needed. Its secret sauce, according to chief technologist Eddie Siegel, is not model selection but the quality of implementation. “It’s like choosing Python or Java,” he said. “It matters, but it’s not where the majority of calories are spent.” The team is made up of elite generalist engineers, many of them former founders, who can own problems end-to-end. The challenge ahead is scaling internationally while competing with OpenAI’s own deployment arm and giants like Deloitte and Accenture. But for Ode, the bet is simple: non-AI companies will be the big winners of this moment, if they can get the right help to put the technology to work.

Source: TechCrunch