OpenAI Annualized Revenue Near $50B, Below Earlier $70B Reports, FT Says

OpenAI's annualized revenue stood at about $50 billion as of September, below the roughly $70 billion cited in some earlier media reports, the Financial Times reported Thursday, citing financial documents shared with investors. OpenAI declined to comment. People familiar said the higher figure stemmed from investors' attempts to compare OpenAI directly with Anthropic, which counts sales through cloud partners including Amazon AWS and Google Cloud as revenue; OpenAI does not use the same method. Investors had adjusted OpenAI's revenue to an estimated $40 billion annualized in August, then combined that with disclosed growth of over 70% to derive the $70 billion figure. Annualized revenue, typically a single month's sales multiplied by 12, is not actual full-year revenue. By the reported figures, OpenAI's annualized revenue is below Anthropic's roughly $65 billion. Both companies are courting enterprise customers. OpenAI last week held its annual developer conference, unveiling the Dots AI agent for enterprise workers and the GPT-6.1 Sol model. OpenAI expects a possible IPO in early 2027, while Anthropic has been reported to potentially list before Thanksgiving this year, though no timetable is confirmed.