OpenAI has acquired Roi, a personal finance app powered by AI. In a trend that’s becoming common in the AI space, only Roi’s CEO is joining the acquiring company.
Sujith Vishwajith, Roi’s co-founder and CEO, announced the acquisition on Friday. A source familiar with the situation confirmed that he is the sole member of Roi’s four-person team making the move to OpenAI. Financial details of the acquisition have not been made public. Roi will shut down and stop servicing users on October 15.
This move continues OpenAI’s recent pattern of acqui-hires, following previous deals involving Context.ai, Crossing Minds, and Alex earlier this year.
Although it’s unclear whether Roi’s technology will be integrated into OpenAI or which department Vishwajith will join, the acquisition fits into OpenAI’s broader vision of personalized AI tools for everyday life. Roi had already been working on solving personalization at scale within financial services—experience that could carry over to other sectors.
Launched in New York in 2022, Roi raised $3.6 million in seed funding from notable investors such as Balaji Srinivasan, Spark Capital, Gradient Ventures, and Spacecadet Ventures. The app was designed to centralize a user’s financial activity—spanning stocks, crypto, DeFi, real estate, and NFTs—into one platform that could track, analyze, and even execute trades.
Vishwajith shared on X that the initial goal was to democratize investing by making it more personalized. Over time, however, the team came to believe that personalization isn’t just the future of finance—it’s the future of all software.
Beyond just monitoring portfolios, Roi gave users an intelligent AI assistant that could respond in a way tailored to each individual. During setup, users could input details like their profession and preferred communication style, shaping how Roi interacted with them.
One standout example posted on X shows a user requesting that the app speak to them like a Gen-Z user with “brain rot,” asking for short replies and encouraging roasts. In response to a portfolio inquiry, Roi replied, “Suje, you got cooked lil bro. Cause of the tariff announcements, you took an L today of $32,459.12…Based on your risk preference this might be an opportunity to buy the dip.”
This type of interaction captured Roi’s core belief: that software shouldn’t just spit out facts, but communicate in a human, engaging, and individualized way that keeps users connected.
In a blog post, the Roi team elaborated on that idea, writing that everyday digital products will move away from static, one-size-fits-all experiences toward dynamic, personalized systems that learn and evolve alongside the user.
That philosophy aligns closely with OpenAI’s growing portfolio of consumer-facing tools, including Pulse, which creates custom news and content summaries while users sleep; the Sora app, a social video platform featuring AI-generated content and personalized cameos; and Instant Checkout, which allows users to shop and complete purchases directly within ChatGPT.
The acquisition also comes as OpenAI continues to expand its consumer apps division, now headed by former Instacart CEO Fidji Simo. This signals a broader ambition to create direct-to-consumer products rather than just offering API access to developers. The expertise and concepts behind Roi could integrate well into these ambitions, helping OpenAI’s tools become more responsive and user-focused.
Before starting Roi, Vishwajith and his co-founder Chip Davis worked at Airbnb, where they honed their skills in user behavior optimization. Vishwajith once claimed that a small tweak—just 25 lines of code—resulted in over $10 million in additional revenue.
For OpenAI, tapping into consumer products that can generate real revenue is more crucial than ever, especially as it faces massive expenses to maintain the infrastructure and data centers that power its advanced AI models.
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