Overview
Convogo built software for executive coaches who needed to turn interviews, survey responses, and assessment results into leadership reports. Founded in San Francisco in 2023, it began as Encore AI before adopting the Convogo name. Its history shows how a small AI company can create separate value in its team and its product.[1][2]
OpenAI hired its three founders in a transaction reported on January 8, 2026, without buying the technology. Hogan Assessments subsequently acquired Convogo. By October 2026, the product website directed visitors to Hogan's waitlist for its next version.[3][4][5]
Image 1 / 1
Founding Story
Matt Cooper, Evan Cater, and Michael Gillett founded the company. A South Park Commons profile described Cooper's earlier work in engineering at Studio and machine learning at Tesla Autopilot. It described Cater's background in AI and education, and Gillett's engineering experience at LiveRamp, Fin, and TripAdvisor.[1]
Cooper's mother, Renée, was an executive coach. His January 2026 announcement traced the idea to her question about using AI to “automate the drudgery of report writing.” A weekend experiment grew into a professional tool. The public accounts do not explain how all three founders first met.[6]
The rebrand widened the ambition. Cooper described helping with “every company's most important conversations,” including employee surveys and organizational change work. That expansion retained the original task: preparing useful material for a professional to interpret.[2]
Timeline
- 2023: South Park Commons dates the San Francisco company's founding to this year.[1]
- 2025: Encore AI became Convogo. Cooper promoted the brand at the ICF New England summer conference; NYU featured him at its Coaching and Technology Summit.[2][7][8]
- January 8, 2026: The founders' move to OpenAI became public. Reporting said the product would wind down.[3]
- July 21, 2026: Hogan's acquisition became public. Its announcement describes developing Convogo's technology for talent professionals.[4]
What They Built
A leadership assessment often combines observations from several people with survey or psychometric results. Convogo organized these inputs into themes, supporting quotations, and draft reports. Coaches could revise the language and choose which evidence belonged in the final assessment. Its website showed interview-based, survey-based, and psychometric workflows, including Hogan results.[9]
This made the product more specific than an empty chat window. A coach needed a defensible report with a consistent structure, rather than an interesting answer to a prompt. The value depended on helping the coach inspect and edit the material before discussing it with a client.
Hogan describes an initial interpretation that practitioners review using their training and judgment. The AI organizes evidence; the practitioner owns the final interpretation.[4]
Market Position
Target Customers
Convogo addressed independent coaches, leadership consultancies, and talent teams. Its website named Goodstone, Heidrick & Struggles, Onpoint, and other organizations. These are company-published customer references, not independently audited deployment counts.[9]
Its distribution reached practitioners through coaching events and demonstrations. That fit a product whose users already had assessment methods and client relationships. Adoption required trust in the workflow, not only awareness of AI.[7][8]
Market Size
No defensible revenue-based market estimate emerged from the available company material. Counts of coaches alone would not establish what they would spend on assessment software.
Competition
The documented substitute was manual report preparation. Hogan's purchase placed the synthesis tool inside an established assessment provider, which could offer the assistance within its existing workflow.[4]
Business Model
Convogo's June 2025 terms describe monthly or annual subscriptions and possible free trials. They do not establish an actual public price, customer spending, or revenue. Cooper thanked South Park Commons and OVO Fund as investors, but disclosed no investment amount in that announcement.[10][6]
Neither transaction has a verified public price in the sources used here. Customer acquisition cost, retention, margins, and profitability remain unknown.
Traction
Cooper said the company helped thousands of coaches over roughly two years. That is a founder-reported usage claim, not a count of paying subscribers. The named references and event appearances establish a real practitioner audience, but they cannot establish the scale or health of the business.[6]
Post-Mortem
Team expertise and product ownership separated
OpenAI's spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company hired the founders for AI cloud work and excluded Convogo's intellectual property. PYMNTS reported that distinction on January 8. The transaction transferred people with experience turning model capabilities into a professional workflow.[3]
Hogan's later acquisition gave the product a different destination. In its announcement, Cooper said Hogan had “the reach, credibility, and long-term vision” to continue the work. The strategic fit is concrete: Convogo already combined assessment inputs, and Hogan supplied an established assessment system.[4]
The observed transactions show two buyers seeking different assets. They leave the independent business's economic performance unresolved. As of October 2026, Hogan's waitlist also leaves the next product's price and general availability unconfirmed.[5]
Key Lessons
- Start with work customers already perform. Convogo addressed a recurring reporting task inside coaching engagements. Its product supported the professional relationship that generated the work.
- Customer access can determine a product's next owner. Hogan could combine assessment content with the synthesis tool. That fit explains a different acquisition rationale from OpenAI's team hire.
- Track the product after a team leaves. A reported wind-down did not describe the final destination. The later Hogan announcement changes both the ownership history and the competitive picture.
Sources
- Convogo — South Park Commons
- Encore AI rebrands as Convogo, launches new product — Matt Cooper
- OpenAI Hires Co-Founders of AI-Powered Tool Convogo — PYMNTS
- Hogan Assessments Acquires Convogo to Advance Talent Insights with AI
- Convogo has been acquired by Hogan Assessments — Hogan Assessments
- Huge news: the Convogo team is joining OpenAI! — Matt Cooper
- ICF New England conference post — Matt Cooper
- NYU Coaching and Technology Summit post — Renée Cooper
- Convogo product website
- Convogo Terms of Service