OpenAI has acquired Roi, an AI-powered personal finance and investing app, in what appears to be more of an “acqui-hire” than a traditional merger. An “acquisition hire” (acqui-hire) is when a company buys another company mainly to hire its team, not to use its products or services.
So instead of buying the business for what it sells, the buyer is really after the people—their skills, experience, or technology know-how. Meanwhile, it's important to note that it's only Roi’s CEO and co-founder, Sujith Vishwajith, that is joining OpenAI; the rest of the small team will not be transitioned.
In this case, when OpenAI acquired Roi, they weren’t buying the investing app itself. They were mainly interested in Roi’s founder and his expertise, so the app will be shut down while the founder joins OpenAI to work on new projects.
"As part of this transition, Roi will be winding down operations this month, with our final day of service on October 15, 2025," the Roi team—Sujith, Chip, Joe and Ajoy—wrote in a memo published on their official website about the acquisition.
This news comes just a day after OpenAI dethroned SpaceX as the most valuable private company in the world.
We're excited to announce Roi has been acquired by OpenAI.
— Roi (@investwithroi) October 3, 2025
Huge thank you to all our users, amazing investors, family, and friends who've supported along the way 💙.
More info below: pic.twitter.com/GZfS9PqZGM
The memo also stated that after the app is shut down, all user data will be deleted in the same day. Roi had built a platform that aggregated a user’s holdings (stocks, crypto, NFTs, DeFi, real estate) and offered an AI companion capable of adjusting its tone and style based on user preferences.
More Personalized AI Experiences
Although the terms of the deal weren’t publicly disclosed, it’s still surprising to see OpenAI move into the personal finance space. However, this acquisition hints that the company is aiming to make its AI more personal and practical.
Instead of just answering questions, OpenAI appears to be moving toward creating a “proactive assistant”—an AI that can understand your habits, anticipate your needs, and help manage tasks like finances or scheduling, much like a smart and personalized helper that actively assist users in managing different parts of their daily lives.
Meanwhile, it's worth noting that this move fits into a trend that OpenAI has been exploring to acquire talent and specialized tech to advance ChatGPT and its other consumer-facing AI model capabilities—especially around personalization and life management.
In May, OpenAI bought io, an AI hardware startup co-founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive, for $6.5 billion. Just a few months later, in September, it added another big deal — acquiring Statsig, a product testing startup, for $1.1 billion.
So, the Roi acquisition isn’t the first major purchase for OpenAI; it follows a series of high-profile deals, including the acquisitions of io and Statsig earlier this year as I have mentioned. What do you think about OpenAI acquisition strategies to advance its AI models? Let's know your opinions in the comments section.
