According to a report, OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, intends to expand its workforce by almost twofold to around 8,000 employees by the end of the year in an effort to accelerate its foray into the business sector and win back market share from competitor Anthropic.

The Financial Times estimates that the AI firm now employs about 4,500 people and is increasing recruitment in specialized positions as well as in product development, engineering, research, and sales to assist companies in using its AI solutions more efficiently.

With intentions to hire about a dozen new employees every day this year, OpenAI has leased more office space in San Francisco as part of its expansion, bringing its footprint in the city to over one million square feet, it said.

Additionally, the report mentioned that the recruitment campaign occurs at a time of increasing competition in the artificial intelligence industry, especially in the corporate sector, where Anthropic has recently made inroads.

According to the report, payment business Ramp’s data shows that new commercial clients are selecting Anthropic’s products at a far higher rate than OpenAI’s, which represents a change from the trend from the previous year.

As a result, OpenAI is making a calculated shift in its strategy to improve its main products.

While enhancing its coding model Codex, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman has urged teams to concentrate on key products, notably its ChatGPT chatbot.

In addition, the business is working to combine Codex and ChatGPT into a single platform that targets both business and consumer users, with the goal of increasing adoption and usability.

In a further indication of a deeper push into business applications, OpenAI is also looking at forming alliances with private equity companies in order to implement its AI solutions across portfolio businesses.

The report also emphasized that, despite their quick expansion, both OpenAI and Anthropic are still losing money since they are investing a lot in training sophisticated AI models.

With possible public listings being considered in the near future, the firms are now under pressure to boost income and get closer to profitability.