OpenAI disclosed Monday that its annualized revenue has crossed $25 billion, a figure that would have seemed implausible for a non-profit AI research lab just three years ago, as the company confirmed it is actively working with investment banks on a public offering that some investors believe could value it at or above $1 trillion.
The revenue milestone reflects explosive enterprise adoption of ChatGPT and the OpenAI API. Corporate subscriptions through the ChatGPT Teams and Enterprise tiers now account for 64 percent of total revenue. The company added 400,000 enterprise seats in Q1 alone.
CEO Sam Altman confirmed the IPO discussions, saying the company has a fiduciary and mission obligation to access public capital markets to fund the compute infrastructure required to reach artificial general intelligence.
Not everyone inside OpenAI is enthusiastic. Multiple senior researchers have raised concerns that IPO pressures will inevitably create tensions between commercial return expectations and the safety-first research culture that has historically defined the organization.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are reportedly leading the IPO preparation, with a potential listing targeted for Q4 2026 pending market conditions.