OpenAI accelerates revenue to $40 billion: record pace amid personnel turbulence
OpenAI is demonstrating impressive financial momentum: the company's annual revenue run rate has reached $40 billion. This is double the figure management cited at the end of 2025. Such a leap significantly strengthens the company's position ahead of a potential stock market debut, although at the same time there is a notable rotation in senior management.
What's behind the explosive growth
Three areas have been the key drivers. First, the ChatGPT subscriber base continues to grow. Second, sales of developer tools focused on code-related work are rising rapidly. Third, the young advertising business is already beginning to make a tangible contribution to overall revenue.
Company president Greg Brockman told employees that revenue in July grew by more than 20% compared to June. Notably, July turned out to be even more productive than the entire second quarter. This was also aided by the new pricing policy: lower service costs attracted corporate clients, and the expected revenue decline did not materialize.
AI agents provided additional momentum. Products like Codex for programmers and ChatGPT Work for office teams are actively pushing clients to upgrade to more expensive plans. CFO Sarah Friar previously projected revenue above $20 billion by the end of 2025, but now the bar has been raised: management expects that by the end of the current year, half of all revenue will come from corporate clients.
Personnel changes and IPO preparation
Against this backdrop, Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser is leaving the company after just about eight months on the job. Her position will be taken by Dali Rajic, who previously led the cybersecurity company Wiz. This is not the first loss: COO Brad Lightcap and Fidji Simo have also departed. Over the past few months, OpenAI has also lost its head of ethics, head of the safety division, and chief strategy officer.
Despite the turbulence, preparations for the stock exchange are in full swing: an IPO application has been filed confidentially, and the company recently bought back $7 billion worth of employee shares. Meanwhile, competitor Anthropic plans to go public as early as October with a valuation of over $2 trillion.
My take: Revenue growth to $40 billion is certainly a strong signal for the market, but the personnel shuffle in key commercial and operational roles is a warning sign. Investors should closely watch whether OpenAI can maintain its monetization pace amid a situation where the team that built these processes is scattering.