OpenAI is a tech giant that has no development center or business activities in Israel. In fact, until recently, the ChatGPT developer ignored the Israeli market. This is while its rival Anthropic does not have a development center in Israel, but employs a representative in Ireland named Eli Hotoveli, who is responsible for developing the local market, among other things.
However, "Globes" has learned that OpenAI has been taking steps in recent weeks to upgrade its activities in the Israeli market through representatives who will operate from Europe to implement the company's LLMs (large language models) in startups and market Codex, the LLM developed by OpenAI for translating natural-language prompts into source code, to development staff in Israeli companies.
But sources close to OpenAI say reports about hiring a manager for local operations from Amazon are incorrect, and that the company has no plans to open an office in Israel or hire a manager who will be responsible for Israeli operations alone. OpenAI itself did not respond to "Globes" inquiries.
Who will sell AI models to Israel?
The person chosen to expand OpenAI's activities in Europe and the Middle East (EMEA) - including Israel - is Tricia Troth, who held a similar position with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and encouraged startups to use all the options offered by Amazon's cloud system.
Troth, who leads the company's marketing and sales for startups in the EMEA, is currently talking to venture capital funds and meeting with figures in Israel’s tech industry to get to know its needs and characteristics. She even led a special workshop that was held online today on behalf of OpenAI and Amazon in Israel.
In the meantime, Troth has recruited her former manager and colleague, Eliran Ben-David, an Israeli living in London, to the role of offering startups that work with the AWS partnerships with OpenAI - but his role is not limited to Israel - Ben-David will work on behalf of OpenAI with companies throughout EMEA.
Ben-David’s role will include encouraging startups at various stages to implement OpenAI's Codex development tool, which competes with Anthropic's Claude Code, on Amazon's AI platform, Bedrock. In a post on LinkedIn that Ben-David posted about the move from Amazon to OpenAI, he wrote that "with Codex and ChatGPT Work already reaching 10 million users, the momentum is clear." Like Troth and Ben-David, many of OpenAI's business development people in the technology company sector appear to have come from a similar role at AWS.
OpenAI has begun to significantly accelerate its marketing and sales efforts towards the business sector, after gaining most of its reputation with an engine for private users - ChatGPT, and after competitor Anthropic deepened its penetration into the business sector at its expense.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 29, 2026.
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