OpenAI’s Revenue Is Soaring, Topping $40 Billion Ahead of Its IPO

OpenAI's revenue growth is accelerating ahead of a highly anticipated initial public offering, with the artificial intelligence giant now on pace to generate more than $40 billion annually, according to a new report.

The company's annualized revenue run rate has roughly doubled from the more than $20 billion it recorded at the end of 2025, Bloomberg detailed, citing people familiar with the privately held company's finances.

One of the biggest drivers has been Codex, OpenAI's AI coding product. Demand has also increased for AI agents capable of completing more complicated tasks with less direct human supervision, including the company's recently launched ChatGPT Work.

At the same time, OpenAI's massive consumer operation continues to expand. Different reports said in June that more than 1 billion people now use ChatGPT, giving it an enormous audience it can monetize through subscriptions as well as its growing advertising business.

The revenue surge could strengthen OpenAI's case with Wall Street as it prepares for an eventual IPO. But it is also unfolding against increasingly aggressive competition from Anthropic, the maker of Claude.

Anthropic said in May that its annualized revenue run rate had surpassed $47 billion, although comparisons between the two companies are complicated because they may calculate the metric differently.

A revenue run rate is not the same as revenue actually generated over a full year. Instead, it typically annualizes recent sales performance to provide a snapshot of how quickly a company is currently generating revenue.

Anthropic's growth has been fueled heavily by enterprise customers and its Claude Code programming tool. The company confirmed the $47 billion figure when it announced a massive $65 billion funding round in May that valued it at $965 billion.

Both companies have confidentially filed paperwork for public offerings, setting up a potentially historic race to Wall Street. Anthropic is expected to move first, possibly as soon as this fall, while OpenAI continues preparing for its own market debut.

OpenAI is also reshuffling the leadership responsible for turning its enormous user base into revenue. On Thursday, the company named Dali Rajic as chief revenue officer. Rajic previously served as president and chief operating officer of cybersecurity company Wiz and will lead OpenAI's global revenue organization.

The appointment comes less than a year after Denise Dresser took the same position. OpenAI said Dresser is leaving to pursue other opportunities. In an internal announcement cited by Bloomberg, OpenAI co-founder and President Greg Brockman said the company's annual revenue run rate jumped more than 20% in July alone.

The acceleration is particularly significant given where OpenAI started the year. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar previously said the company finished 2025 with more than $20 billion in annualized revenue.

Still, revenue growth is only part of the equation ahead of an IPO. Running frontier AI models requires extraordinary spending on chips, data centers, energy and other computing infrastructure, while competition is putting pressure on prices.