OpenAI and Anthropic competing for private equity enterprise AI deals

OpenAI Is Offering PE Firms 17.5% Guaranteed Returns — And It Says Everything

The AI industry just stopped pretending it’s a technology revolution and started acting like a Wall Street dealmaking frenzy. Reuters broke the news on March 23: OpenAI is offering private equity firms preferred equity stakes with a guaranteed minimum return of 17.5% to lure them into joint ventures focused on enterprise AI deployment. The company behind ChatGPT is essentially paying buyout firms to help it sell AI to their portfolio companies — because rival Anthropic is running the same playbook. ...

March 23, 2026 · 5 min · DBBS Tech