Anthropic announced Monday a partnership with private equity heavyweights Goldman Sachs and Blackstone to launch a $1.5 billion venture aimed at accelerating artificial intelligence adoption across hundreds of companies.

The new firm, created with Hellman & Friedman and supported by asset managers including Apollo and General Atlantic, will embed Anthropic’s Claude AI model directly into business operations, beginning with portfolio companies owned by the investment groups.

Executives said the initiative seeks to address a key constraint in the AI surge: a shortage of skilled professionals able to effectively integrate the technology into day-to-day operations.

“There’s a big shortage of people who know how to apply these tools into businesses and then transform them,” Marc Nachmann, Goldman’s global head of asset and wealth management, told CNBC.

The move represents Anthropic’s newest push to strengthen its position in the enterprise AI market as competition heats up with rivals such as OpenAI.

By combining its latest Claude models with a ready-made network of investor-backed companies, Anthropic is seeking to secure an advantage in bringing AI to the middle market.

The segment has become a crucial battleground as both Anthropic and OpenAI gear up for potential blockbuster IPOs as early as this year.