OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has broken another record: annual revenue has exceeded $25 billion—and that’s just two years after launching its commercial product. For comparison: Salesforce reached this milestone in 18 years, Google in 17.
And that’s not all. At the end of March 2026, OpenAI closed the largest private funding round in tech history—$122 billion at a valuation of $852 billion. And now the company is preparing to go public with a potential market cap of up to $1 trillion.
Where Does All This Money Come From—OpenAI’s Financial Performance
The numbers are impressive even by Silicon Valley standards.
Revenue:
- 2023: $2B
- 2024: $6B
- 2025: $13.1B
- February 2026: $25B annual run rate
4x growth in 14 months—no company in enterprise software history has shown this pace.
Users:
- 910 million weekly active users
- 9+ million paying business customers
- Over 1 million organizations using OpenAI technologies
The problem: despite all this revenue, the company is still unprofitable. In 2026, OpenAI is spending around $25B—as much as it’s earning. The main reason is massive computing infrastructure costs.
$122 Billion Round—Who Invested and Why
Key Investors
Amazon—$50B (of which $15B upfront, the rest tied to achieving certain milestones)
NVIDIA—$30B primarily in the form of computing resources
SoftBank—$30B backed by credit from JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs
Additionally, around $3B was raised from retail investors through banking channels—an unprecedented move for a private company.
H3: Why So Much Money
The funds will go toward building data centers for the Stargate project in Texas, developing new models, and hiring top talent. OpenAI has already committed to spending over $500B on cloud infrastructure by the end of the decade.
IPO in 2026—What We Know
According to Reuters and TechCrunch, OpenAI is in active talks with investment banks about going public.
What we know for sure:
- Filing is planned for the second half of 2026
- Trading could begin in 2027
- Potential valuation—up to $1 trillion
- The company is already included in several ARK Invest ETFs
What’s unusual: OpenAI is still unprofitable—yet could become one of the 20 most valuable public companies in the world on its first day of trading.
Main Competitor—Anthropic Is Gaining Ground
While OpenAI prepares for its IPO, Anthropic—the company behind the Claude model—is rapidly closing in.
| Metric | OpenAI | Anthropic |
|---|---|---|
| Annual revenue | $25B | $19B |
| Growth rate | ~3.4x per year | ~10x per year |
| Enterprise API share | 25% | 32% |
According to Epoch AI forecasts, if both companies maintain their current pace, Anthropic could overtake OpenAI in revenue as early as 2026-2027. Two years ago, this seemed impossible.
ChatGPT—What Will Change for Users
As it prepares for the IPO, OpenAI is making several important moves:
Ads in ChatGPT. Sam Altman called advertising a “last resort” back in 2024. But in January 2026, the company launched targeted ads for free users. Forecast: $1B from advertising in 2026.
Super app. OpenAI is building a desktop app that will combine ChatGPT, Codex, and the Atlas browser into a single agent platform.
GPT-5.4—the current flagship—already processes over 15 billion tokens per minute via API.
What This Means for the AI Market
If OpenAI’s IPO happens with a valuation near a trillion dollars, it will be the biggest tech public offering since Google in 2004.
For the average user, this means one thing: competition between OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and now Meta is getting even fiercer. Which means AI tools will get better and cheaper faster than ever.
Material prepared by the TechVisor team — practical IT media for people. Sources: TechCrunch, Reuters, OpenAI official blog (March 31–April 9, 2026)
