OpenAI Company Profile

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Last updated: October 17, 2026 | Status: Private (OpenAI Group PBC) | Last confirmed round: $122 billion at $852 billion post-money (closed March 31, 2026)

Company overview

OpenAI develops general-purpose AI models and the products built on them, most visibly ChatGPT, and sells model access to developers and enterprises through its API. It was founded in December 2015 as a nonprofit research lab by Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk and others, built a capped-profit subsidiary in 2019, and in October 2025 completed a conversion to a public benefit corporation (OpenAI Group PBC), with the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation holding a large stake and Microsoft about 27%.

It is the largest private AI company by funding raised and one of the fastest-growing companies on record, but also one of the most capital-hungry: it has committed to hundreds of billions of dollars of computing capacity across Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon, NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcom and others, and it is not profitable. In 2026 it won a high-profile lawsuit brought by Elon Musk, launched advertising in ChatGPT, moved heavily into coding and workplace agents, and has been reported to be considering new funding or a public listing, though its CEO said an IPO will not happen in 2026.

Key facts

Founded	December 2015, as a nonprofit; Musk left the board in 2018
Headquarters	San Francisco, California
Legal structure	OpenAI Group PBC (public benefit corporation) since October 2025, controlled by the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation, whose stake was valued at about $130 billion at conversion; Microsoft holds about 27%
CEO / President	Sam Altman / Greg Brockman
Board chair	Bret Taylor (also CEO of Sierra; see the Sierra AI profile)
Valuation	$852 billion post-money (March 2026); reported talks at about $1.4 trillion (September 2026, unconfirmed)
Total raised	Roughly $180–190 billion of equity and debt since 2015, depending on the tracker
Users	ChatGPT: more than 900 million weekly active users and more than 50 million subscribers (spring 2026); 9 million paying business users (April 2026)
Employees	Not confirmed in the sources reviewed

Business model

OpenAI earns revenue from consumer subscriptions (Free, Go, Plus and Pro tiers of ChatGPT), business and enterprise seats, API usage by developers, and, since February 2026, advertising shown inside ChatGPT for some US users. The company said when it closed its March round that enterprise already contributed more than 40% of revenue and was on track to match consumer revenue by the end of 2026, and that an advertising pilot reached more than $100 million of annualized revenue within six weeks.

The cost side is dominated by computing. OpenAI spends heavily on training and serving models, and its commitments to rent or build capacity far exceed its current revenue (see Strategy). The Wall Street Journal reported in 2025 that the company did not expect a profit until 2029, and independent estimates of future cash burn vary widely and are not disclosed by the company.

Products and technology

Area	Status
GPT models	Rapid release cadence in 2026: GPT-5.4 (March 5, including Thinking and Pro variants and a context window of about 1 million tokens), GPT-5.5 (April 23, six weeks later), and GPT-5.6 (generally available July 9). GPT-4o, GPT-4.1 and the original GPT-5 were retired from ChatGPT on February 13.
ChatGPT	Consumer and workplace assistant with a new lower-priced Go tier, ChatGPT Images 2.0 (April 2026) and ads in search-style answers. Reported at more than 900 million weekly users from February 2026.
Codex	Coding agent: about 4 million users in April, more than 5 million weekly users in early June, and a "Goal Mode" made generally available in May. Competes with Anthropic's Claude Code.
ChatGPT Work	Task agent launched July 9, 2026 in a redesigned desktop app together with Codex; OpenAI said combined users of the two reached 10 million within about two weeks. Aimed directly at Anthropic's Claude Cowork.
API and enterprise	Model access for developers and enterprises, including regulated customers such as banks; also distributed through Microsoft Azure, with the Microsoft agreement extending rights through 2032.
Other bets	Custom chips with Broadcom, an "iPhone competitor" device effort and the Stargate data-center program were described by the Wall Street Journal in 2025.

Financial information

Item	Detail
Revenue, 2024–2025	About $3.7 billion in 2024; a third-party estimate puts unaudited 2025 revenue near $13 billion, with an annualized run rate above $20 billion by the end of 2025.
Run rate, March 2026	The company said it was generating $2.6 billion of revenue a month, roughly $25 to $30 billion annualized, at the close of its March round.
Run rate, summer and fall 2026	Bloomberg reported in August an annualized run rate above $40 billion, roughly double the end-2025 level. Reuters reported on September 29 that annualized recurring revenue was approaching $70 billion, with enterprise sales more than doubling since July. These come from press reports citing people familiar with the figures, not from audited statements.
Profitability	Not profitable; no audited financials are public.

Annualized run rate multiplies a recent month's revenue by twelve and is not the same as revenue booked in a year. The company's own March figure and the later press-reported figures are far apart, so editors should attribute each to its source and date.

Funding history

Date	Detail
2019–2023	Microsoft investments totaling roughly $13 billion.
2024	$6.6 billion round.
March 2025	$40 billion round led by SoftBank at a $300 billion valuation.
October 2025	Conversion to a public benefit corporation; valuation reported at about $500 billion; Microsoft receives 27%.
February–March 2026	Announced in February at $110 billion on a $730 billion pre-money valuation, and closed March 31 at $122 billion and $852 billion post-money. Amazon committed $50 billion, NVIDIA $30 billion and SoftBank $30 billion, with SoftBank leading.
September 2026 (reported)	Bloomberg reported early talks to raise at least $30 billion at a valuation of about $1.4 trillion (excluding new capital) as a bridge ahead of an eventual IPO. OpenAI has not confirmed the terms.

Leadership

Sam Altman	Co-founder and CEO. Briefly removed by the board in November 2023 and reinstated within days.
Greg Brockman	Co-founder and President; publicly presented GPT-5.5.
Bret Taylor	Chairman of the board.

Other senior roles (finance, applications, research and operations) were not verified in the 2026 sources reviewed. Confirm the current executive team on OpenAI's website before publishing.

Competitors

Anthropic: The closest rival in enterprise and coding. Coverage in 2026 describes it gaining ground with developers and business buyers, and OpenAI's Codex and ChatGPT Work directly target its Claude Code and Claude Cowork products. See the Anthropic profile for its own figures.
Google (Gemini): Gemini's app passed 750 million monthly users at the end of 2025 and over 1 billion by August 2026 (see the Alphabet / Google profile).
xAI (now part of SpaceX), Meta and others: Other frontier model developers. Musk's SpaceX acquired xAI ahead of its own IPO.
Microsoft: Partner, largest outside shareholder and, with its own MAI models and Copilot, a competitor.
AI application companies: Specialists in customer service, coding and workplace agents that build on frontier models (see the Sierra AI and HubSpot profiles).

Strategy

1. Secure compute at unprecedented scale

Oracle: A reported five-year, $300 billion agreement anchoring the Stargate program, for 4.5 gigawatts and at least 5 gigawatts in total, announced as part of a $500 billion US infrastructure plan with SoftBank.
Microsoft: A $250 billion commitment to purchase Azure services as part of the October 2025 restructuring.
Amazon: A reported $138 billion, eight-year agreement tied to Amazon's $50 billion investment, including about two gigawatts of Trainium chips (see the Amazon / AWS profile).
NVIDIA, AMD and Broadcom: A 10-gigawatt strategic alliance with NVIDIA (see the NVIDIA profile); six gigawatts of AMD GPUs with an arrangement to buy up to 160 million AMD shares as milestones are met; and custom chips with Broadcom. Citi estimated that delivering the roughly 26 gigawatts promised across the three would cost more than $1 trillion over five years, at about $50 billion per gigawatt.
Others: About $22.4 billion with CoreWeave, and a reported $20 billion with Cerebras.

A critical analyst estimate (Ed Zitron, an opinion source) puts total commitments near $852 billion through 2030, but this is an inference, not a company disclosure. Reports also describe a shift from rigid joint ventures toward flexible compute agreements, with some Stargate executives leaving for Meta.

2. Fund it with strategic partners

Much of the March 2026 round came from companies that also supply OpenAI (Amazon, NVIDIA and SoftBank), a structure that links their investment returns to OpenAI's purchases and raises circular-financing questions.

3. Move from chatbot to agents and enterprise

Codex and ChatGPT Work, an annual cadence of frontier models and an expanding enterprise sales motion are meant to shift revenue toward business customers, while ads and the Go tier monetize free users.

4. Resolve governance and legal overhangs

On May 18, 2026 a federal jury in Oakland found that Elon Musk had not filed his lawsuit in time, after less than two hours of deliberation, rejecting his claims that OpenAI betrayed its nonprofit mission. Musk had sought up to $134 billion in damages for the charity and the removal of Altman and Brockman. Musk's lawyers reserved the right to appeal. Commentators said the verdict removed a major obstacle to an eventual IPO.

5. IPO timing is unsettled

Some summaries report a confidential S-1 filing in May or June 2026 and a target valuation of $730 billion to $1 trillion, but Altman said in September 2026 that OpenAI would not go public in 2026, and Bloomberg described the new funding talks as a bridge ahead of an eventual listing. These accounts conflict, and OpenAI has not published an offering document.

The CODEW analysis

Independent analysis, separate from the factual record above. Draft for editorial review.

OpenAI is both the demand signal and the main counterparty risk in AI infrastructure. Its compute commitments underpin revenue forecasts at Oracle, NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcom, CoreWeave and parts of Microsoft and Amazon. If OpenAI's revenue keeps compounding, those backlogs are real; if it slows or funding tightens, the effect would show up across the sector. This makes OpenAI's finances relevant to nearly every profile in The CODEW's coverage.

The growth claims deserve careful sourcing. The company's own March number (about $2.6 billion a month) and the press-reported run rates of $40 billion in August and nearly $70 billion in late September imply a very steep climb in months. They may reflect enterprise, coding and advertising growth, but they come from unnamed sources and differ in definition, so editors should present them as reported run rates, not revenue.

The financing is circular by design. Amazon, NVIDIA and SoftBank invest while also selling to, or building for, OpenAI, and AMD's warrants tie chip supply to OpenAI milestones. That can accelerate buildouts, but it also means the same dollars are counted as investment by one party and revenue by another. The gap between commitments (hundreds of billions to a trillion or more) and current revenue is the central question for the next two years.

The competitive picture has tightened. OpenAI retains the largest consumer audience, but its enterprise and coding position is contested by Anthropic and Google, and it responded with faster model releases, Codex and ChatGPT Work. Ads and the Go tier diversify revenue but add a trust trade-off in consumer products.

Governance is stable for now. The Musk verdict removes the biggest legal threat, though an appeal is possible, and the foundation-controlled PBC structure remains unusual. A public listing would bring audited disclosure for the first time.

What to watch: confirmation of any new round and its valuation; audited or filed financials; Stargate capacity actually coming online; changes to the Microsoft, Oracle and Amazon arrangements; enterprise share against Anthropic; advertising revenue; and any appeal in the Musk case.

Related coverage

AI Intelligence
Company Intelligence
Company Analysis and Company Deep Dive: OpenAI
Watch Series
The Term Sheet (OpenAI funding, Stargate and chip deals)
Related profiles: Microsoft, NVIDIA, Amazon / AWS, Alphabet / Google, Anthropic, Broadcom, AMD, CoreWeave, Oracle, Sierra AI

Sources

This profile is a durable reference page and is not investment advice. Factual sections are sourced above; the CODEW analysis section reflects The CODEW's independent view. Last updated October 17, 2026.

The CODEW