OpenAI Tells Investors It Expects $70 Billion in Annualized Revenue by End of 2026

OpenAI expects its annualized revenue to reach or exceed $70 billion by the end of 2026, the company told investors during discussions tied to its latest fundraising round, Bloomberg reported on October 9, 2026. The projection would mark a jump from the roughly $50 billion in annualized revenue OpenAI reported at the end of September, according to the same report.

Where the $50 billion-to-$70 billion jump comes from

Per Bloomberg's reporting, OpenAI cited 77% total run-rate revenue growth in the third quarter and 107% run-rate growth in its enterprise business over the same period as the basis for the year-end target. The company is sharing these figures as it seeks to raise $30 billion or more at a valuation of $1.4 trillion before the new money is added, with talks reportedly involving Abu Dhabi-based investment fund MGX, among others.

Why the number has confused investors

The $70 billion figure has appeared in two different contexts in recent weeks, and that overlap is the source of much of the confusion.

On October 8, the Financial Times — as cited by TechCrunch — reported that OpenAI's actual annualized revenue was "approaching $50 billion," about $20 billion below an earlier $70 billion estimate that some investors had been using. According to the Financial Times reporting, that higher estimate came from OpenAI's own investors trying to make the company's figures directly comparable to Anthropic's, and in doing so applied Anthropic's accounting method rather than OpenAI's own.

Bloomberg's October 9 report builds on that correction: it describes $70 billion not as OpenAI's current revenue, but as the company's own forward-looking target for where annualized revenue should land by the end of 2026, starting from the corrected $50 billion baseline.

OpenAI and Anthropic count revenue differently

The core technical issue, per Bloomberg, is that OpenAI and Anthropic do not calculate annualized revenue the same way. Anthropic's reported figures include gross revenue generated through cloud partners such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. OpenAI's figures do not include that partner-channel revenue, counting only revenue it books directly.

Anthropic reported annualized revenue of $65 billion as of July 2026, according to Bloomberg. Because that figure includes cloud-partner sales while OpenAI's does not, the two companies' headline numbers are not directly comparable, even though they are often cited side by side as a measure of which company is ahead in the generative-AI race.

Market reaction and wider context

Yahoo Finance's report, drawing on the Bloomberg reporting, noted that technology shares declined after it emerged that OpenAI's actual annualized revenue was lower than some investors had previously assumed, with the Nasdaq 100 falling 1.4% and chip stocks falling 3.4%.

TechCrunch noted that leaked financials for 2025 showed OpenAI generating about $13 billion in revenue while spending significantly more than that, and reported that the company's planned initial public offering, once expected in 2026, has been pushed back to early 2027.

Semafor reported that some analysts have questioned whether annualized revenue — a figure obtained by multiplying a recent period's revenue rate rather than reporting actual annual earnings — is a reliable metric for assessing a company's financial health, even as it continues to be used widely across the AI industry to signal demand and justify large infrastructure investments.

What is confirmed and what remains unclear

• Confirmed: OpenAI's annualized revenue was about $50 billion at the end of September 2026, per Financial Times reporting cited by TechCrunch.
• Confirmed: OpenAI told investors it expects that figure to reach or exceed $70 billion by the end of 2026, per Bloomberg.
• Confirmed: Anthropic reported $65 billion in annualized revenue as of July 2026, using a method that includes cloud-partner sales, per Bloomberg.
• Unclear: Neither company has published audited annual financial statements confirming these figures publicly; the numbers come from investor briefings and reporting, not regulatory filings.

Neither OpenAI nor Anthropic is required to publish audited financial statements, since both remain private companies. The figures cited in this reporting come from company communications with investors and from outlets citing those briefings, rather than from public filings.