OpenAI's Enterprise Business Overtakes Consumer as Revenue Run-Rate Hits $40 Billion

OpenAI's enterprise business now generates more revenue than its ChatGPT-led consumer arm, CFO Sarah Friar told investors on August 14, two quarters ahead of the company's own forecast, CNBC reported. "We entered the year at 60-40, but enterprise has accelerated much faster than expected and those lines have now crossed. The majority of our revenue is now enterprise," Friar said, according to an attendee. OpenAI's annualized revenue run-rate has hit $40 billion, up from roughly $20 billion at the start of the year, with July revenue growing 20 percent month over month and business customers up 32 percent.

A Week of Turmoil

The investor meeting capped a turbulent week that saw Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser step down just eight months into the role; she will be replaced by Dali Rajic, formerly operating chief at cybersecurity firm Wiz. President and co-founder Greg Brockman joined the call, thanked Dresser for building the enterprise foundation and brushed off concerns about cheaper open-source competition. OpenAI has filed a confidential IPO prospectus with the SEC, with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan leading the deal.

From Tokenmaxxing to Cost per Unit

Friar said enterprise customers have moved from "tokenmaxxing" to focusing on cost per unit of intelligence, pointing to a newest model that is 54 percent more efficient on agentic coding tasks and recent price cuts across the model suite. Advertising is approaching a $1 billion run-rate after ads began testing in ChatGPT in February. The disclosure landed the same day Anthropic reported preliminary Q2 revenue above $11.5 billion and its first profitable quarter, setting up what analysts describe as twin landmark IPOs.