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OpenAI teams up with consulting giants to boost its enterprise business

OpenAI has a new sales force to market its enterprise AI tools to big corporations.

In a press release, the ChatGPT maker unveiled a number of “Frontier Alliances” with consulting companies Accenture, Boston Consulting Group, Capgemini, and McKinsey.

“Frontier” refers to OpenAI’s platform introduced earlier this month that “helps enterprises build, deploy, and manage AI agents that can do real work.”

These alliances come amid an industrywide love affair with Anthropic’s Claude Code, which has juiced the startup’s revenue projections.

Companies may want to introduce AI tools, but do not have a good strategy around how to get started. That’s where consulting companies come in.

For companies in that situation, going to one of these consulting firms for AI-related help might now be like going to a financial adviser who gets an extra commission from having you invest in a specific fund offered by the investment arm of their firm.

The consulting industry was a forerunner to software in terms of facing AI disruption and, in the case of Accenture, seeing its share price slump as the market rallied. Employment in the sector peaked right around the time that ChatGPT was launched.

For Accenture, this marks the latest in a series of AI collaborations and builds off its prior partnership with OpenAI. The positive spin on this strategy from Accenture's perspective is that management is accepting that the consulting business will be fundamentally transformed by AI, and wants to be among the first movers in adapting to survive that transition. Uncharitably, as we’ve said, this is “training your replacements.”

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SpaceX gets a wave of bullish ratings from Wall Street analysts

SpaceX received more than a dozen positive analyst calls on Tuesday — including from major Wall Street banks — as they initiate coverage on Elon Musk’s space and AI company.

SpaceX went public on June 12 at a $2.2 trillion valuation, the largest debut in history. While the company hasn’t yet posted a profit, it seems to have convinced Wall Street that it will get there and grow its valuation on the way.

Of the at least 17 analysts that gave a rating on Tuesday, all but one gave it a “buy” or “outperform” rating. MoffettNathanson was "neutral."

The ratings come as SpaceX joined the Nasdaq 100 index, a benchmark tech-heavy basket of companies that underpins millions of portfolios. The inclusion adds built-in demand for the stock from index funds and ETFs.

Still, SpaceX fell more than 5% on Tuesday amid a broader sell-off, and is currently effectively flat from its opening price of $150 a share.

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Nike sinks to lowest level since 2014 after warning of “challenged” sales environment in Q4 report

Did Nike do it?

Investors had a mixed reaction after the global sports apparel company reported its fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday after the bell. Shares initially rose 5% as Nike beat out Wall Street expectations amid a hefty tariff refund bonus. However, the stock then sank to its lowest level since August 2014 in postmarket trading.

Here are the Q4 numbers:

  • Revenue of $11.0 billion (estimate: $10.8 billion).

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $0.20 (estimate: $0.12).

Ahead of this report, Nike warned that results would be flattered by a one-time tariff refund (now estimated at roughly $0.52 per share for the bottom line). That gave the company an extra cushion in snapping its streak of seven quarters of year-over-year profit declines.

Over the past year, the company had been punished by tariffs on imported goods, stagnant consumer spending, and increasing competition from other footwear brands like New Balance, Adidas, and Hoka.

Outgoing CFO Matthew Friend deemed it an “increasingly challenging operating environment, where sell-through remains challenged.”

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