Strong growth pushes OpenAI past $20 billion in annualised revenue

OpenAI’s annualised revenue has surpassed $20 billion in 2025, up from $6 billion a year earlier. The company’s computing capacity and user numbers have also continued to grow.

The company recently confirmed it will begin showing advertisements in ChatGPT to some users in the United States. The move is part of a broader effort to generate additional revenue to cover the high costs of developing and running advanced AI systems.

OpenAI’s platform now spans text, images, voice, code, and application programming interfaces. CFO Sarah Friar said the next phase of development will focus on agents and workflow automation that can operate continuously, retain context over time, and take action across multiple tools.

Looking ahead to 2026, the company plans to prioritise what it calls ‘practical adoption’, with a particular emphasis on health, science, and enterprise use cases. The aim is to move beyond experimentation and embed AI more deeply into real-world applications.

Friar also said OpenAI intends to maintain a ‘light’ balance sheet by partnering with external providers rather than owning infrastructure outright. Contracts will remain flexible across hardware types and suppliers as the company continues to scale its operations.

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