Former AWS Executive Eliran Ben-David Joins OpenAI to Lead Israeli Startup Partnerships

Eliran Ben-David, a former senior executive at Amazon Web Services (AWS), has joined the artificial intelligence giant OpenAI to manage its relationships with startups in Israel. Earlier this week, OpenAI held an introductory event showcasing its tools to Israeli startups, marking a strategic move to deepen its engagement with Israel's tech ecosystem. This appointment follows reports that OpenAI felt it had missed out on the Israeli high-tech sector, which has been more aligned with competitor Anthropic's AI development tools.

Ben-David’s role is officially titled AWS Partnerships Manager and is based in London, covering the EMEA region, but his primary focus will be Israeli high-tech companies. OpenAI also has an open position dedicated to building and managing startup connections in Israel, linked to its Paris office. Tricia Troth, responsible for startup marketing across EMEA, leads OpenAI’s activities in the region and supervises Ben-David.

This initiative coincides with OpenAI’s recent strategic partnership with Sheba Medical Center, the first hospital outside the U.S. to access OpenAI’s dedicated medical model, OpenAI Healthcare. Israel’s advanced adoption of AI tools, especially in the enterprise sector, underscores the importance OpenAI places on the Israeli market. Despite not developing its own language model, Israel ranks first globally in per capita use of Anthropic’s AI tool Claude, surpassing countries like the U.S. and Singapore.

Research from Bank of America places Israel in the early second tier globally for AI development, hindered mainly by weaker national infrastructure and limited government investment. However, Israel ranks first in AI talent concentration and third in AI company investments, totaling $19 billion from 2013 to 2025. Hundreds of Israeli startups build products on language models, making the market critical for OpenAI, especially as competitors Anthropic and Google’s Gemini gain traction.

Anthropic leads in enterprise adoption and international expansion, with centers in Germany, Japan, and Korea, and is projected to surpass OpenAI’s revenue this year, nearing $50 billion compared to OpenAI’s $25 billion. Although OpenAI has more users, Anthropic is more cash-efficient and recently surpassed OpenAI’s valuation at $965 billion versus $852 billion. OpenAI has postponed its planned Wall Street IPO to 2027, aiming for a $1 trillion valuation, while Anthropic is actively preparing for its own IPO, confident of exceeding that valuation.