AI talent war: OpenAI acquihires the team behind Crossing Minds

OpenAI hired the team behind Crossing Minds, a startup known for providing AI-powered recommendations for ecommerce businesses, on Friday.

Founded in 2017 by AI researchers Alexandre Robicquet, Emile Contal, and Google X founder Sebastian Thrun, Crossing Minds is headquartered in San Francisco.

The company announced that the entire team would now work with OpenAI to build on existing AI capabilities.


"Joining OpenAI allows us to bring our work — and our values — into a mission we deeply respect: to ensure artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. We’re thrilled to bring our experience and energy to a team that’s setting the direction for the future of AI,” the Crossing Minds cofounders wrote in a statement.

Backed by the likes of Index Ventures, Shopify, Plug and Play, and Radical Ventures, the AI startup has raised more than $13.5 million across multiple rounds as per a report by TechCrunch.

The development came after OpenAI recently decided to buy Jony Ive’s AI devices startup io in an all-equity deal for $6.4 billion, including its current stake in the company. io is OpenAI's largest acquisition so far and came soon after it agreed to buy Windsurf, an artificial intelligence-assisted coding tool, for about $3 billion.

In 2024, OpenAI acquired search and database analytics startup Rockset to provide better infrastructure for its enterprise products.

The previous year, OpenAI had acquired digital products company Global Illumination.