Private-equity giants Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman have launched a roughly 160-person artificial-intelligence team in partnership with Anthropic, deploying the experts within their portfolio companies and beyond. The initiative stems from a $1.5 billion joint venture called Ode, which also counts Apollo, General Atlantic and Goldman Sachs among its backers. Each of the three lead investors is contributing about $300 million to the standalone firm.

“What we liked was this was a senior engineering team,” said Rodney Zemmel, global head of Blackstone’s operating team. “It’s not like a bunch of kids who just learned AI.” The goal is to offer Ode’s AI consulting services far beyond private-equity-owned businesses, targeting the broader corporate market.

The expansion mirrors moves by rivals such as OpenAI, which has teamed with private-equity firm TPG on a separate $4 billion venture to provide AI advisory services. Both efforts arrive as business leaders tighten AI budgets and question return on investment. While white-collar anxiety over AI has surged, executive warnings of mass layoffs have softened: 20% of CEOs expect significant job cuts from AI investments in a May EY-Parthenon survey, down from 46% in January 2025.