OpenAI’s Latest Hire: ServiceNow’s Colin Fleming, Because ‘AI Marketing’ Is Code for Selling Hype to Suits

Let’s get right to it: OpenAI is not hiring Colin Fleming, ex-CMO of ServiceNow, because they suddenly woke up to the value of authentic, technical storytelling. They’re hiring him because, as of this week, the AI gold rush is shifting from engineers in hoodies to business-class suits with fat software budgets. Fleming’s own words—he’d have “regretted not taking the swing”—should tell you everything. This is career FOMO, not a mission call.

Here’s your Tuesday reality check: ServiceNow is an enterprise workflow platform that’s about as sexy as a spreadsheet, but it prints money because it sells comfort and inevitability to the Fortune 500. Fleming’s playbook? Blandify the impossible until every CIO thinks you’re the future. OpenAI is banking on that same strategy to turn their LLMs into ‘must-have’ enterprise solutions—never mind that most of these tools still hallucinate like a Brooklyn street preacher after three red bulls.

The timing is classic late-spring Silicon Valley. Product launches are wearing thin, attention spans are short, and OpenAI desperately needs to show Wall Street they can monetize something—anything—beyond tech Twitter’s dopamine. Enter a CMO who knows how to wrangle Gartner quadrants and polish up a whitepaper until it’s safe enough for a boardroom in Midtown.

Let’s kill the myth before it metastasizes: This isn’t about democratizing AI. It’s about packaging AI as a SaaS add-on for enterprises too scared to miss the boat, and too lazy to build anything themselves. The real innovation here is how expertly these guys can repurpose the same “transformative” PowerPoint decks for every industry from healthcare to logistics without ever showing a working demo.

My recommendation? If you’re a founder, stop looking to OpenAI’s moves as a product north star. Unless your goal is to land on the same conference panels as Colin Fleming, focus on building tools that actually deliver value—even if that means skipping the buzzword salad. Because the suits aren’t coming for your code, they’re coming for your budget.