OpenAI revenue estimate shared with investors is lower than reports

In short: OpenAI told investors its annualised revenue was nearing $50bn in late September, which is about $20bn less than the $70bn figure that was widely reported.

What happened

Financial documents shared with OpenAI investors show the company recently said its annualised revenue was approaching $50bn at the end of September, according to the Financial Times. “Annualised revenue” is a shortcut estimate that takes a recent pace of sales and projects it over a full year (like taking one month’s pay and multiplying it to guess a yearly salary).

The $50bn figure is well below the $70bn number that was reported by the Financial Times and other outlets last month, based on information that had been provided to investors. OpenAI is a private company, so it does not have to publish regular financial updates, and it declined to comment.

The Financial Times said the gap appears to come from different ways of counting sales. One key point is how to treat money earned through cloud partners, like Amazon AWS and Google Cloud. The report said Anthropic includes that partner revenue in its annualised figure, while OpenAI does not, and some investors tried to adjust OpenAI’s number to make it easier to compare.

The new presentation also suggests OpenAI’s annualised revenue was close to $30bn in July. The company later told backers it had grown more than 70 percent since then.

Why it matters

These big revenue estimates help investors decide how much OpenAI might be worth in future funding rounds, and they also shape expectations about demand for AI tools. The Financial Times reported that US tech stocks fell after the earlier $70bn report, showing how sensitive markets can be to these numbers.

Source: Financial Times