The TL;DR
OpenAI researches and builds Machine Learning models, and sells access to them.
- Building ML models yourself to use day in and day out is really hard for companies without specialized expertise
- For years, big companies (Google, AWS, etc.), and smaller startups too, have built businesses on selling access to their home grown models
- OpenAI does the same: researches, builds, and sells access to powerful ML models like GPT and DALL-E
- The company is a bit strange: they’re a combination of a non-profit and for-profit corporation
OpenAI has obviously been all over the news over the past few years, and is probably one of the most important companies in the world right now.