OpenAI Flexes Enterprise Ambitions With Colin Fleming As Business CMO

A CMO Instantly From The Enterprise Trenches

Fleming joins OpenAI after serving for 2 years as CMO at ServiceNow; earlier than that, he spent greater than a decade at Salesforce, the place he rose to government vp of worldwide advertising. At each corporations, he constructed a fame for transferring B2B advertising away from secure lead-gen content material. He targeted as a substitute on narrative campaigns that felt cinematic, human and, at instances, intentionally provocative.

The rising presence of AI in advertising has upped the ante much more. In a latest change about how AI is altering the CMO’s job, Fleming instructed me, “AI can transfer common work sooner, so the usual has to go up. Readability. Style. Specificity. Self-discipline.”

Though he called leaving ServiceNow “gut-wrenching,” Fleming is clearly enthusiastic about his transfer to the corporate that launched the AI increase in 2022. OpenAI’s management has made 2026 its pivotal year for prioritizing enterprise, emphasizing that the corporate’s core problem is fixing for software and product use — not continued mannequin coaching.

In that context, Fleming’s precedence is to translate OpenAI’s superior analysis and product plans into a transparent enterprise narrative prepared for boardroom scrutiny, elevating the model among the many world’s high know-how and repair leaders. Fleming described the task to me as “assist[ing] set the usual for placing AI to work safely, usefully and at scale.

From ‘Don’t Be Boring’ To ‘Who Governs The Brokers?’

The CMO’s latest work at ServiceNow provides an perception into the advertising muscle OpenAI is bringing onboard. Below Fleming, ServiceNow adopted a extra opinionated voice on AI. One instance: a Wall Street Journal campaign that used satire and future-tense storytelling to pose a critical query. What occurs when AI brokers make choices sooner than organizations can govern them? The total-page, memo-style advert, written from brokers to people, reframed brokers not as magic, however as methods requiring specific governance and accountability. The message was clear: Enterprises should clarify, audit and personal their choices.

After I requested what he needed that marketing campaign to do, Fleming mentioned the purpose was “to make the chance really feel actual.” As AI brokers start to sense, resolve and act, he instructed me, “Governance can not keep summary. It has to point out up within the work.”

The advert labored as a result of it addressed the actual board-level concern that AI brokers can outpace governance. (Agentic governance was a recurring theme in my recent analysis of Microsoft’s Work Trend Index 2026 report.) And this type of marketing campaign does three key issues enterprise AI wants: It cuts by hype, facilities human accountability and sparks important conversations about accountability as clever methods enter our day by day workflows. Fleming was clear that these conversations can not dwell on the margins: “Belief has to sit down in the principle story,” he instructed me. “If belief is required for adoption, it can not dwell within the appendix.”

What OpenAI’s Rent Indicators To CIO Consumers

OpenAI has already begun to reorient its enterprise technique round unbiased distribution, customized enterprise-grade fashions and AI brokers that sit on high of present methods. It has additionally been specific that its subsequent section is about high-value skilled work and sensible deployment — not simply normal chat interfaces — in areas equivalent to customer support, IT and operations.

For CIOs and know-how leaders, Fleming’s appointment suggests {that a} sharper, extra opinionated story is coming, one which connects fashions and brokers to particular workflows, governance patterns and enterprise outcomes. After I requested how belief matches into that, he pushed again on the concept of treating it as a one-off theme: “Belief is earned throughout the entire expertise: product, deployment, safety evaluate, documentation, buyer proof and each dialog with the folks liable for placing AI into manufacturing,” he mentioned. “So, sure, it’s product and narrative. Product has to hold the reality. Narrative has to make it clear.”

Primarily based on my dialog with Fleming, I imagine that story will present up not solely in campaigns, but additionally in how OpenAI packages its enterprise choices, the way it frames value-based or outcome-based pricing for brokers and the way carefully advertising is tied to gross sales, buyer success and accomplice motions within the area. As enterprises weigh whether or not intelligence lives of their cloud, their methods of document, their collaboration stack or a brand new intelligence layer, OpenAI is clearly positioning itself as a contender to personal extra of that dialog throughout the C-suite.

Inside the corporate, Fleming argues, the advertising operate itself has to vary in type. He mentioned that it has to turn into “AI‑native” — with “sooner studying, higher sensing, much less friction. Extra readability. Extra particular work for extra particular audiences.” OpenAI, in his view, “mustn’t merely sound like the subsequent enterprise software program firm.”

The vital work, he mentioned, will now be turning OpenAI’s excessive model consciousness into confidence amongst patrons. Fleming framed his workforce’s activity as giving enterprises proof that call‑makers can take to their board. “Individuals know the product. They really feel the tempo. They perceive that the know-how is highly effective,” he mentioned. “The enterprise [marketing] job is to show that consciousness into confidence, confidence into adoption, and adoption into proof. Our greatest gross sales instrument ought to have the shopper’s title on it.”

How CMOs Might Rethink Their Personal Narratives

This transfer can also be a sign to different CMOs. Fleming has been vocal concerning the limits of generic B2B storytelling, arguing that manufacturers want a definite standpoint and a willingness to say one thing that not everybody will agree with. After I requested him what single mindset shift B2B advertising leaders have to make on this new period, he didn’t begin with AI options, however with studying and curiosity. “AI adjustments how briskly groups can be taught,” he instructed me. “It lowers the price of making an attempt issues, testing concepts, seeing patterns and bettering the work. However pace solely issues if the questions get higher.”

His campaigns at Salesforce and ServiceNow put story earlier than product specs. They began with human stakes and cultural context, then led audiences again to platforms and merchandise.

In at the moment’s speedy buildout of AI, that self-discipline turns into non-negotiable. Consumers are flooded with related guarantees about copilots and brokers, whereas workers and regulators are asking arduous questions on belief, transparency and management. The lesson for CMOs is that credible AI narratives require emotion and readability, paired with an trustworthy therapy of threat, governance and accountability.

Once we mentioned how B2B shopping for really occurs, Fleming introduced it again to humanity and curiosity. “B2B shopping for remains to be human,” he mentioned. “Individuals convey strain, ambition, doubt, funds and threat into the room. Curiosity is the way you perceive that room. It’s the way you construct one thing price trusting.”

How Companions And Rivals Will Want To Reply

OpenAI’s deeper enterprise engagement will check its closest companions first. Microsoft has tied its Copilot technique and elements of Azure’s AI portfolio tightly to OpenAI’s fashions, whilst each organizations court docket most of the similar world accounts. In the meantime, Zoom and different collaboration suppliers that use OpenAI are embedding generative options into their very own merchandise and, in some circumstances, partnering with workflow platforms like ServiceNow to ship AI-enhanced experiences.

As OpenAI builds a stronger business-facing model and experiments with new methods to package deal and value its platform, these companions might want to sharpen how they clarify their very own differentiated worth, whether or not that’s in distribution, vertical depth, compliance frameworks or the workflows and information methods that in the end govern AI choices. Direct rivals equivalent to Anthropic and Google, which have leaned into security, management and integration as core enterprise messages, are prone to reply by investing extra closely in their very own front-of-house storytelling along with their mannequin benchmarks.

All of that is unfolding whereas OpenAI itself faces scrutiny over security, focus of energy and long-term vendor stability, which makes Fleming’s narrative work round brokers and accountability greater than a branding train. On this subsequent section of enterprise AI, know-how, governance and narrative will rise or fall collectively. The manufacturers that endure would be the ones which can be finest capable of clarify, with conviction and proof, what brokers are for, who governs them and the way they have an effect on work — and that assist prospects perceive, management and belief these methods. That’s OpenAI’s alternative, and that it why it recognized Fleming as the appropriate individual for the job.