OpenAI continues its push to create more personalized AI applications.
OpenAI is set to complete the acquisition of Roi, an AI-powered personal finance application. The deal follows the AI industry trend of the CEO jumping ship with the acquisition.
The announcement was made by chief executive and co-founder Sujith Vishwajith on his personal X account on Friday.
“I’m excited to announce that Roi has been acquired by OpenAI!” he posted. He also said, “We started Roi 3 years ago to make investing accessible to everyone by building the most personalized financial experience. Along the way, we realized personalization isn’t just the future of finance. It’s the future of software.”
In his statement, Vishwajith mentioned that he is thrilled with the acquisition. “This acquisition marks an incredible milestone for Roi, and we’re thrilled to continue building out our vision at OpenAI. We’re extremely grateful to our users, investors, friends, and family who made this journey possible,” he added.
According to several sources close to the matter, he is the only one making the switch out of the four-person staff at the company.
Vishwajith did not disclose the terms of the deal, but it is expected that the company will wind down its operations and end its service to its users on October 15.
The latest OpenAI acquisition marks the latest in a string of acqui-hires from the company. Earlier this year, the company completed the acquisition of Context.ai, Crossing Minds, and Alex. While it remains to be seen what part of Roi’s tech will transfer to OpenAI or which unit Vishwajith will join, the acquisition is in line with OpenAI’s new bet.
The company is now betting on personalization and life management as the next layer of its AI products.
Roi is coming with a specialized team that has already tried to solve personalization in finance at scale, a challenge whose lessons can be applied broadly. Rio, based in New York, was founded in 2022 and has raised $3.6 million in early-stage funding. The funding involved investors like Balaji Srinivasan, Spark Capital, Spacecadet Ventures, and Gradient Data, according to PitchBook data.
According to the firm, its mission was to aggregate a user’s financial footprint, including stocks, crypto, real estate, DeFi, and NFTs, into one app that can track funds, provide insights, and help people make trades. Aside from tracking, Roi also allows users access to a financially savvy AI companion that is programmed in ways that make sense for them.
According to the company behind Roi, its software is designed in a way that it should not just provide generic answers but adapt, learn, and communicate in ways that feel personal and human, and keep the users engaged.
“The products we use every day won’t remain static, predetermined experiences. They’ll become adaptive, deeply personal companions that understand us, learn from us, and evolve with us,” the team wrote in its blog post.
The vision aligns with OpenAI’s consumer-based efforts, including Pulse, which is designed to generate personalized news and content reports for users as they sleep. The new Sora app, a TikTok rival filled with AI-generated content, including personal cameos from users and Instant Checkout, a feature that lets users shop and make purchases directly in ChatGPT, is also one of the features that the company has been working on.
