OpenAI anticipates hitting or surpassing $70 billion in annualized revenue by the close of the year, according to individuals with knowledge of the situation, fueled primarily by expansion in its enterprise segment.
The annualized revenue for the ChatGPT developer stood at approximately $50 billion as of the end of September, those individuals stated. This metric serves as a forecast of OpenAI's yearly sales derived from a shorter timeframe.
The company disclosed these figures to investors during negotiations for its most recent funding initiative, said the sources, who asked not to be named when discussing confidential details. The company is negotiating to secure $30 billion or more at a $1.4 trillion valuation prior to the new investment, as Bloomberg initially reported in September.
OpenAI chose not to provide a comment.
OpenAI, Anthropic and other AI organizations have frequently highlighted their annualized revenue as a crucial indicator of growth. Nevertheless, not every company calculates it identically. Anthropic's annualized revenue reached $65 billion by the end of July, as Bloomberg News reported earlier.
Certain media outlets noted last month that OpenAI was already forecasting close to $70 billion in annualized revenue, based on investor projections. The Financial Times reported on Thursday that the inconsistency stemmed from OpenAI's investors trying to compute OpenAI's annualized revenue using the same approaches as competitor Anthropic PBC, which handles sales from cloud providers in a different manner.
On Thursday, technology stocks drove declines in the S&P 500 following reports that OpenAI's annualized revenue would fall short of some earlier forecasts. The Nasdaq 100 dropped 1.4%. An index of major chip companies declined 3.4%.
Although OpenAI has delayed its plans for an initial public offering until at least the following year, citing its emphasis on AI safety initiatives, Anthropic is anticipated to offer shares in an IPO possibly as early as November.
OpenAI is in discussions with several investment funds from the United Arab Emirates, such as Abu Dhabi-based MGX, to assist in anchoring its new funding round, Bloomberg has reported.
The company most recently secured a $122 billion round in March at an $852 billion valuation, factoring in the capital.