Open AI CFO Signals Encouraging Revenue Trend as July Annualized Revenue Tops Q 2
OpenAI and Anthropic, two prominent artificial-intelligence startups, are competing intensely while also facing a new wave of competition from lower-cost open-source AI products and working to sustain growth. OpenAI has received some encouraging news. At an internal all-hands meeting on Wednesday, OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar and board Chairman Bret Taylor highlighted the company’s revenue growth and discussed its competitive position relative to Anthropic. Friar said OpenAI’s annualized recurring revenue in July exceeded its annualized recurring revenue in the second quarter. According to portions of the meeting transcript reviewed by the media, Friar also said, “The second quarter itself was not a bad performance.” Friar and Taylor also discussed the release of the company’s GPT-5.6 series of models, a new enterprise agent called ChatGPT Work, and the competitive situation involving Anthropic. OpenAI has been working to attract new users, particularly businesses and developers, to generate the revenue needed to support its infrastructure-spending plans, which are funded by external capital. In February, OpenAI told investors that it planned to reach about $600 billion in total computing expenditures by 2030. As reported by the media earlier this week, OpenAI is currently in talks with Nvidia about as much as $250 billion in financial support to help it lease a large new AI data center in Ohio. Anthropic’s striking performance and rapid rise—its valuation earlier this year had surpassed OpenAI’s—have raised questions about the sustainability of OpenAI’s business. Anthropic said in May that its annualized revenue had exceeded $47 billion, far above its previous estimate of about $10 billion in full-year 2025 revenue. The increase was mainly driven by the popularity of its Claude Code tool among developers. Taylor told employees on Wednesday that Anthropic had made a strong start to the year. He also acknowledged that OpenAI needed to catch up in the coding market, while saying he was encouraged by Codex’s growth. “You see some people who spend a lot of time with Claude Code, end up with very high bills, and then start looking for alternatives,” he added. OpenAI and Anthropic both secretly filed IPO documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in June, but neither company has announced a specific listing timetable.
At an internal all-hands meeting on Wednesday, OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar and board Chairman Bret Taylor highlighted the company’s revenue growth and discussed its competitive position relative to Anthropic. Friar said OpenAI’s annualized recurring revenue in July exceeded its annualized recurring revenue in the second quarter.
According to portions of the meeting transcript reviewed by the media, Friar also said, “The second quarter itself was not a bad performance.”
Friar and Taylor also discussed the release of the company’s GPT-5.6 series of models, a new enterprise agent called ChatGPT Work, and the competitive situation involving Anthropic.
OpenAI has been working to attract new users, particularly businesses and developers, to generate the revenue needed to support its infrastructure-spending plans, which are funded by external capital.
In February, OpenAI told investors that it planned to reach about $600 billion in total computing expenditures by 2030. As reported by the media earlier this week, OpenAI is currently in talks with Nvidia about as much as $250 billion in financial support to help it lease a large new AI data center in Ohio.
Anthropic’s striking performance and rapid rise—its valuation earlier this year had surpassed OpenAI’s—have raised questions about the sustainability of OpenAI’s business. Anthropic said in May that its annualized revenue had exceeded $47 billion, far above its previous estimate of about $10 billion in full-year 2025 revenue. The increase was mainly driven by the popularity of its Claude Code tool among developers.
Taylor told employees on Wednesday that Anthropic had made a strong start to the year. He also acknowledged that OpenAI needed to catch up in the coding market, while saying he was encouraged by Codex’s growth.
“You see some people who spend a lot of time with Claude Code, end up with very high bills, and then start looking for alternatives,” he added.
OpenAI and Anthropic both secretly filed IPO documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in June, but neither company has announced a specific listing timetable.