OpenAI released Presence on July 22, a managed enterprise product for deploying AI agents across voice and chat workflows. The platform bundles policies, guardrails, system integrations, evaluation tools, and a Codex-powered improvement loop into a single deployment package, according to OpenAI’s announcement.

Presence is available immediately through a limited general availability program. Deployments are led by OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineers and select global systems integrators. There is no self-service option.

What Presence Does

Each deployment starts with a defined job: resolving a billing issue, supporting an insurance claim, handling an employee IT request. The agent receives only the knowledge and system access required for that task. The enterprise sets what the agent can do independently, which actions require approval, and when a human takes over.

Before launch, teams run simulations against common requests, edge cases, and higher-risk scenarios. Graders evaluate whether the agent reached the intended outcome, followed policy, used tools correctly, and escalated when required. After launch, Codex monitors production sessions and proposes updates that teams test against the current version before approving a rollout.

An OpenAI spokesperson told VentureBeat that “Presence uses OpenAI models for the core agent, while allowing customers to connect third-party models and services through APIs for guardrails, tools, and other parts of their workflow.”

OpenAI’s Own Phone Line as Proof of Concept

OpenAI says Presence already powers its English-language phone support at 1-888-GPT-0090. The system handles open-ended requests, verifies callers, uses account context, and takes approved actions. According to OpenAI, it now resolves 75% of inbound issues without human assistance, and the Codex improvement loop reduced human handoffs by 15 percentage points over a 10-day period.

Those figures are company-reported and have not been independently verified, as VentureBeat noted.

Launch Partners

Three enterprises are working with Presence at launch:

  • BBVA is exploring AI-powered voice support for everyday banking needs in Mexico. Daniel Ordaz, head of AI transformation at BBVA Mexico, said the bank is “working closely with OpenAI to explore how trusted customer agents can help shape the future of financial services,” according to OpenAI’s announcement.
  • SoftBank is testing natural Japanese-language customer conversations.
  • IAG, an Australian insurer, is exploring support during high-demand periods such as severe weather and natural disasters.

Pricing and Availability

OpenAI has not disclosed pricing, geographic availability, or contractual terms. VentureBeat’s Carl Franzen reported asking an OpenAI spokesperson about pricing twice without receiving a response. The product currently supports voice and chat channels. OpenAI’s marketing materials mention email as a future channel, but the company has not confirmed email support is available at launch.

The Enterprise Agent Platform Race

Presence enters a crowded field. Google’s Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform launched with cryptographic agent identity at the hardware layer. Harness recently extended its CI/CD platform with Agent DLC for governing agent development lifecycles. Startups like Neo ($100M from Andreessen Horowitz) are building agent inventory and governance tooling. Anthropic has not released a comparable managed deployment product.

The common thread across these launches: the hard problem in enterprise AI agents has shifted from model capability to production reliability. Presence is OpenAI’s bet that the company best positioned to solve that problem is the one that also makes the models.