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OpenAI Taps Slack Chief to Scale Its Enterprise Push

• By John K. Waters
• 12/18/2025

OpenAI has hired Denise Dresser, CEO of Slack, as its new chief revenue officer in a bid to accelerate its enterprise business at a time when the AI company is burning cash faster than almost any startup in history.

Dresser will oversee OpenAI's global revenue strategy starting next week, reporting to COO Brad Lightcap. The appointment comes as OpenAI seeks to transform ChatGPT from a viral consumer product into a dependable business platform, the company announced Tuesday.

"We're on a path to put AI tools into the hands of millions of workers, across every industry," said Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of applications, in a statement. "Denise has led that kind of shift before, and her experience will help us make AI useful, reliable, and accessible for businesses everywhere."

Dresser brings deep enterprise credentials to OpenAI. She spent over 14 years at Salesforce building global sales organizations before becoming Slack's CEO in 2023, where she steered the messaging platform through its integration following Salesforce's $27.7 billion acquisition in 2021. At Slack, she oversaw the rollout of AI features, including channel recaps, jargon translation, and an AI-powered Slackbot assistant.

Her hire arrives during OpenAI's most financially turbulent period. The company generated roughly $4.3 billion in revenue during the first half of 2025, up 16 percent from the full year 2024, according to The Information. But it burned $2.5 billion over the same stretch, driven largely by model development costs and the expense of running ChatGPT.

The spending trajectory is steep. OpenAI projects $74 billion in operating losses by 2028, nearly 75 percent of its expected revenue, The Wall Street Journal reported. In November, CEO Sam Altman disclosed that OpenAI faces up to $1.4 trillion in commitments over eight years, raising questions about whether its business model can sustain its ambitions.

OpenAI is betting that enterprise adoption can help stabilize its finances. The company says more than one million business customers, including Walmart, Morgan Stanley, Target, and Lowe's, now use its technology for internal operations and customer-facing applications. Meanwhile, 800 million people use ChatGPT each week.

The shift toward workplace AI is already showing results, according to OpenAI's data. Seventy-five percent of workers report that AI has improved the speed or quality of their work, with many saving 40 to 60 minutes daily. Heavy users are saving more than 10 hours per week. Three-quarters of users say they can now complete tasks previously out of reach.

"I've spent my career helping scale category-defining platforms, and I'm looking forward to bringing that experience to OpenAI as it enters its next phase of enterprise transformation," Dresser said in a statement.

Companies are moving beyond experimental AI pilots toward organization-wide deployments, integrating the technology into core processes and mission-critical applications. OpenAI supports this through ChatGPT for Work and its API, which allows businesses to connect AI directly into their systems.

Executives have signaled plans to diversify revenue beyond enterprise licensing, with early discussions around advertising, tiered subscriptions, and more structured commercial packages.

Rob Seaman, Slack's chief product officer, will serve as interim CEO, Salesforce confirmed. Dresser previously served on the board of directors at the nonprofit Ad Council.