Ode 以"Claude-first"原则为大型企业定制 AI 系统，已收购 AI 工程服务初创公司 Fractional AI 作为核心团队，目前拥有 100 名工程师。
人工智能模型的能力正在不断提升，但企业究竟会如何采用它们仍是一个大问题。为了塑造这一未来，像Anthropic和OpenAI这样的实验室已经推出了独立的业务：https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/04/anthropic-and-openai-are-both-launching-joint-ventures-for-enterprise-ai-services/，专注于将AI工程师派驻到客户办公室——他们押注于帮助企业弄清如何使用AI模型将成为下一个万亿美元规模的市场。
其中的一家公司现在有了名字：Ode，与Anthropic合作成立的这家AI实施公司价值15亿美元，该AI实验室于五月作为与Blackstone、Hellman & Friedman、高盛等的合资企业的一部分推出。此举呼应了OpenAI自己的做法——The Deployment Company，这也强调了前沿AI实验室日益认同的观点：赢得企业客户远不止于发布更好的模型。
Ode最初是由Blackstone构想的，当时它发现，在让大型咨询公司和小型AI服务精品公司在其投资组合公司中实施AI时，存在一定的空白。显然，其中一家精品公司——AI工程服务初创公司Fractional AI脱颖而出，合资企业在公告发布后不久便收购了这家初创公司。（在被收购时，Fractional结束了与OpenAI长达11个月的合作。）
Fractional已成为现在Ode的基础——一种“规模化精品”AI服务公司。其领导团队也有雄心勃勃的目标。
Ode的首席执行官兼Fractional联合创始人Chris Taylor在接受TechCrunch独家采访时表示：“如果我们执行得好，很容易想象这家公司有一天会成为万亿美元的企业。业务的关键挑战是，如何在经历高速增长阶段时，不丢失对质量的重视？”
Ode目前雇佣了100名工程师，并与Anthropic的应用AI团队紧密合作，以确定技术可以对不同企业产生哪些影响，并为每个组织的运营创建量身定制的系统。
Anthropic 的内部团队将继续专注于战略性、与使命一致的部署，一位发言人告诉 TechCrunch。支持 Ode 的私募股权公司将把他们自己的投资组合公司引入合资企业，作为潜在客户，不过 Ode 不会将其服务的销售限制在这些公司范围内。
对于 Ode 来说，一个理想的客户是其 CEO 认同这一承诺的公司，Taylor 表示。
“我们正在做的很多工作都是公司 CEO 的首要一两个优先事项，”Taylor 说。“这是公司在未来两年内将要构建的最重要的产品功能，或者是他们最重要的业务流程的重塑。”
Ode 将遵循“Claude 优先”原则运营，这意味着它将在可能的情况下实施 Anthropic 的技术，包括 Slack 中的 Claude Tag：https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/23/anthropics-claude-tag-is-learning-your-company-one-slack-message-at-a-time/。不过，该公司并不限于使用 Anthropic 的技术，如果需要，也会使用竞争对手的 AI 产品。
Ode 的首席技术官兼 Fractional 联合创始人 Eddie Siegel 表示，这家合资企业的独门秘方是其实施质量，以及为业务问题构建定制解决方案的能力。
“我认为模型选择很重要，但这不是消耗主要精力的地方，”Siegel 说。“它只是必须被工程化的系统中的一个成分。这就像在构建一段软件时选择编程语言[…]我不会根据企业是否选择 Python 或 Java 来定义一次企业转型。”
Taylor 补充道，Ode 的创立信念是“如果非 AI 公司以正确的方式采用技术，它们将在整个 AI 浪潮中成为大的赢家。”但要利用 AI，这种“神奇、会产生幻觉的成分”，并用它改造核心业务流程或客户体验，则需要大量帮助，他说。
“这需要顶尖的应用 AI 人才，而这是大多数公司所不具备的，”Taylor 说。
Ode的高管们将他们的团队描述为精英通才软件工程师，其中超过一半是前创始人——正如Siegel所说，这类人能够“既处理非常复杂的技术问题，又可以独立负责整个项目”。或者用一位Blackstone高管的话来说：这是一个“成熟”的工程师团队，是“特种部队”，而不是一支前线部署工程师（FDE）的军队。
正如参与该风险投资的几个人告诉TechCrunch的，FDE团队的需求远远超过供应。Ode的目标是在国际上继续扩张，同时保持其精品公司的定位——换句话说，就是不断进行评估，以衡量AI实施的业务影响。
但在顶尖工程人才本已稀缺的世界中，维持和发展这样一支团队确实是一项挑战。如果成为一名精英应用AI工程师需要有创业经验、以系统为先的思维、AI技能以及企业产品判断力，那么Ode是否能够培养出足够的人才来满足需求呢？
再加上Ode不仅要与OpenAI的The Deployment Company竞争，还要面对像德勤（Deloitte：https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/services/consulting/articles/announcing-forward-deployed-engineering.html）和埃森哲（Accenture：https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/2026/accenture-launches-microsoft-forward-deployed-engineering-practice-to-help-organizations-scale-ai-across-the-enterprise）这样的咨询巨头，它们也建立了自己的FDE团队，困难就更大了。
Siegel对“成熟的通才工程师”数量减少并不太担心。
“成为企业家从未像现在这样容易，”他说。“通过尝试独立负责整个项目、努力实现产品与市场的匹配、推动业务发展，你可以学到很多。你在解决狭窄问题时学不到这些。这项技能集非常适合Ode。”
是否会有足够的工程师出现仍是一个未知数。但如果Ode及其支持者是对的，那么下一场伟大的AI竞赛不仅仅是关于最佳模型，而是关于谁能成功地在全球最大的公司中运用这些模型。
当你通过我们文章中的链接购买产品时，我们可能会获得少量佣金：https://techcrunch.com/techcrunch-affiliate-monetization-standards/。这不会影响我们的编辑独立性。
Rebecca Bellan 是 TechCrunch 的高级记者，报道塑造人工智能的商业、政策和新兴趋势。她的作品也曾发表于 Forbes、Bloomberg、The Atlantic、The Daily Beast 等出版物。
你可以通过发送邮件至 rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com：mailto:rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com 或在 Signal 上通过加密消息发送至 rebeccabellan.491 来联系或验证 Rebecca 的联系。
最后机会可在 TechCrunch 创始人峰会节省最多 190 美元。加入 1,000 名各阶段的创始人和风险投资人，获取实际规模化的洞察和推动发展的联系。优惠截止至 6 月 26 日太平洋时间 11:59 p.m。
Satya Nadella 对使用 AI 的公司发出了令人震惊的警告：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/13/satya-nadella-has-issued-a-shocking-warning-to-companies-using-ai/ Julie Bort：https://techcrunch.com/author/julie-bort/
苹果针对 OpenAI 的商业机密诉讼中最离奇的指控：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/13/the-wildest-allegations-in-apples-trade-secrets-lawsuit-against-openai/ Sarah Perez：https://techcrunch.com/author/sarah-perez/
Anthropic 开始针对印度（其美国之外最大市场）本地化 Claude 定价：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/13/anthropic-starts-localizing-claude-pricing-for-india-its-biggest-market-after-the-us/ Jagmeet Singh：https://techcrunch.com/author/jagmeet-singh/
Meta 在遭到抵制后移除了 Instagram 上有争议的 AI 功能：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/10/meta-removes-controversial-ai-feature-on-instagram-after-backlash/ Lucas Ropek：https://techcrunch.com/author/lucas-ropek/
苹果因涉嫌商业机密盗窃起诉 OpenAI：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/10/apple-sues-openai-over-alleged-trade-secret-theft/ Sarah Perez：https://techcrunch.com/author/sarah-perez/
Elon Musk 赞扬 Mythos/Fable，并承诺不会“切断” Anthropic：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/09/elon-musk-praises-mythos-fable-promises-not-to-cut-off-anthropic/ Julie Bort：https://techcrunch.com/author/julie-bort/
Instagram 用户：这是阻止 Meta 的 AI 使用你的照片的方法：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/09/how-to-stop-metas-ai-image-generator-from-using-your-instagram-photos/ Lauren Forristal：https://techcrunch.com/author/lauren-forristal/
AI models are becoming ever more capable, but exactly what enterprise adoption will look like remains a big question. In a bid to shape that future, labs like Anthropic and OpenAI have spun up separate businesses：https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/04/anthropic-and-openai-are-both-launching-joint-ventures-for-enterprise-ai-services/ dedicated to deploying AI engineers to their customers’ offices — a bet that assisting businesses in figuring out how to use their AI models is the next trillion-dollar category.
One of those businesses now has a name: Ode with Anthropic is the $1.5-billion, AI implementation company that the AI lab launched in May as part of a joint venture with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Goldman Sachs and others. The move follows OpenAI’s own take on this, The Deployment Company, underscoring a growing acknowledgement among frontier AI labs that winning enterprise customers requires far more than shipping better models.
Ode was originally conceived by Blackstone, which noticed a gap when it had roped in large consulting firms and small AI services boutiques to implement AI across its portfolio companies. One of those boutiques, AI engineering services startup Fractional AI, apparently stood out, and the joint venture acquired the startup shortly after it was announced. (Fractional ended an 11-month partnership with OpenAI when it was acquired.)
Fractional has become the foundation of what is now Ode — a kind of “scaled boutique” AI services firm. And its leaders have ambitious goals.
“It’s pretty easy to imagine this as a trillion-dollar company someday if we execute well,” Chris Taylor, CEO of Ode and co-founder of Fractional, told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview. “The key challenge of the business is how do you go through that phase of hyper growth without losing the emphasis on quality?”
Ode currently employs 100 engineers, and works closely with Anthropic’s applied AI team to identify where the tech can have an impact on different businesses, and create systems tailored to each organization’s operations.
Anthropic’s internal team will continue to focus on strategic, mission-aligned deployments, a spokesperson told TechCrunch. The private equity firms backing Ode will funnel their own portfolio companies to the joint venture as potential customers, though Ode will not limit sales of its services to those companies.
For Ode, an ideal customer is one whose CEO buys into the promise, according to Taylor.
“A lot of the work that we’re doing is the top one or two priority for the CEO of the company,” Taylor said. “It’s the most important product feature that the company is going to build over the course of the next two years, or it’s reworking the most important business process they have.”
Ode will operate under a “Claude-first” principle, meaning it will implement Anthropic’s technology, including features like Claude Tag in Slack：https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/23/anthropics-claude-tag-is-learning-your-company-one-slack-message-at-a-time/, whenever possible. The company isn’t limited to Anthropic’s technology, though, and will use rival AI products if needed.
Eddie Siegel, Ode’s chief technologist and a Fractional co-founder, says the venture’s secret sauce is its quality of implementation, and the ability to build custom solutions for business problems.
“I think model selection matters, but it’s not where the majority of calories are spent,” Siegel said. “It’s one ingredient in a system that has to be engineered. It’s like the choice of programming language when you build a piece of software […] I would not define an enterprise transformation in terms of whether they choose Python or Java.”
Taylor added the founding belief behind Ode is that “non-AI companies are going to be among the big winners of this whole AI moment if they adopt the technology the right way.” But to take AI, “this magic, hallucinating ingredient,” and rewire core business processes or customer experiences with it requires a lot of help, he said.
“That requires top-caliber applied AI talent, which is not something most companies have,” Taylor said.
Ode’s executives describe their team as elite generalist software engineers, over half of whom are former founders — the kind of people who can “juggle a really challenging technical problem, but also own something end-to-end,” per Siegel. Or as one Blackstone executive put it: a team of “grown-up” engineers, the “special forces” rather than an army of forward-deployed engineers (FDEs).
As several people involved in the venture told TechCrunch, demand for such FDE teams far outstrips supply. Ode’s goal is to continue scaling, internationally too, while maintaining its boutique firm positioning — in other words, running constant evaluations to measure the business impact of AI implementations.
But in a world where top engineering talent is already scarce, maintaining and growing such a team presents a real challenge. If becoming an elite applied AI engineer requires experience as an entrepreneur, systems-first thinking, AI chops, and enterprise product judgement, would Ode be able to train enough people to meet demand?
Compound those difficulties with the fact that Ode will be competing not only with OpenAI’s The Deployment Company, but also with consulting giants like Deloitte：https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/services/consulting/articles/announcing-forward-deployed-engineering.html and Accenture：https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/2026/accenture-launches-microsoft-forward-deployed-engineering-practice-to-help-organizations-scale-ai-across-the-enterprise, which have created their own FDE teams.
Siegel isn’t too worried about a dwindling pool of grown-up generalist engineers.
“It has never been an easier time to become an entrepreneur,” he said. “You learn so much by trying to own problems end-to-end, going to try and get product-market fit, move the needle on a business. You learn a lot there that you don’t learn from just solving a narrow problem. That’s the skill set that fits really well with Ode.”
Whether enough of those engineers will show up remains an open question. But if Ode and its backers are right, the next great AI race won’t just be about the best models, but about who can successfully put those models to work inside the world’s largest companies.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission：https://techcrunch.com/techcrunch-affiliate-monetization-standards/. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Rebecca Bellan is a senior reporter at TechCrunch where she covers the business, policy, and emerging trends shaping artificial intelligence. Her work has also appeared in Forbes, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and other publications.
You can contact or verify outreach from Rebecca by emailing rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com：mailto:rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at rebeccabellan.491 on Signal.
Last chance to save up to $190 on TechCrunch Founder Summit. Join 1,000+ founders and VCs at all stages for real-world scaling insights and connections that move the needle. Savings end June 26, 11:59 p.m. PT .
Satya Nadella has issued a shocking warning to companies using AI：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/13/satya-nadella-has-issued-a-shocking-warning-to-companies-using-ai/ Julie Bort：https://techcrunch.com/author/julie-bort/
The wildest allegations in Apple’s trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/13/the-wildest-allegations-in-apples-trade-secrets-lawsuit-against-openai/ Sarah Perez：https://techcrunch.com/author/sarah-perez/
Anthropic starts localizing Claude pricing for India, its biggest market after the US：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/13/anthropic-starts-localizing-claude-pricing-for-india-its-biggest-market-after-the-us/ Jagmeet Singh：https://techcrunch.com/author/jagmeet-singh/
Meta removes controversial AI feature on Instagram after backlash：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/10/meta-removes-controversial-ai-feature-on-instagram-after-backlash/ Lucas Ropek：https://techcrunch.com/author/lucas-ropek/
Apple sues OpenAI over alleged trade secret theft：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/10/apple-sues-openai-over-alleged-trade-secret-theft/ Sarah Perez：https://techcrunch.com/author/sarah-perez/
Elon Musk praises Mythos/Fable, promises not to ‘cut off’ Anthropic：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/09/elon-musk-praises-mythos-fable-promises-not-to-cut-off-anthropic/ Julie Bort：https://techcrunch.com/author/julie-bort/
Instagram users: Here’s how to stop Meta’s AI from using your photos：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/09/how-to-stop-metas-ai-image-generator-from-using-your-instagram-photos/ Lauren Forristal：https://techcrunch.com/author/lauren-forristal/
扫码直达文章详情