OpenAI revenue in July tops entire Q2 as GPT-5.6 and ChatGPT Work drive enterprise growth

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar tells employees that annualized revenue in July topped all of Q2

As OpenAI chases rival Anthropic in the enterprise and tries to sustain growth in the face of new competition from cheaper open-source alternatives, the artificial intelligence company is seeking to reassure staffers that the business remains healthy. In an internal meeting with employees on Wednesday, finance chief Sarah Friar and board chair Bret Taylor touted OpenAI's revenue growth and addressed competition with Anthropic, CNBC has learned. Friar said OpenAI's annualized recurring revenue in July exceeded the entire second quarter. "And Q2 was no slouch," Friar said, according to a partial transcript of the meeting that was reviewed by CNBC. Friar and Taylor said momentum was driven by the release of the company's GPT-5.6 series of models, its new enterprise agent called ChatGPT Work, and growing adoption of its AI coding tool, Codex. OpenAI is under pressure to justify its $852 billion valuation as it gears up for a potentially massive IPO. The company faces a constantly changing competitive landscape that includes Anthropic and Google as well as a slew of so-called open-weight models out of China that can be accessed at much lower costs. Earlier this month, China's Moonshot AI unveiled Kimi K3, which claims it closes the gap with leading U.S. offerings and surpasses OpenAI and Anthropic's most capable systems on some benchmarks. OpenAI has been racing to bring in new users, particularly enterprises and developers, in order to generate the revenue needed to help support its infrastructure spending plans, which are being funded by outside capital. In February, OpenAI told investors that it plans to target roughly $600 billion in total compute spend by 2030. It's currently in discussions with Nvidia about a backstop of up to $250 billion that would help fund its plans to lease a massive new AI data center in Ohio, as CNBC reported earlier this week. The staggering figures and the rapid rise of Anthropic, which surpassed OpenAI by valuation earlier this year, have raised questions about the durability of OpenAI's business. Anthropic said in May that its revenue run rate revenue topped $47 billion, up from the roughly $10 billion that it generated for all of 2025, as its Claude Code tool has become a huge hit with developers. The Information reported in March that OpenAI had recently topped $25 billion in annualized revenue, citing a person with knowledge of the matter. Taylor told employees on Wednesday that Anthropic had a strong start to the year, and he acknowledged that OpenAI had to play catch-up in the coding market. But he said he's encouraged by Codex's growth. "You're seeing people who went deep on Claude Code, ended up with a very high bill, and started looking for an alternative," Taylor said at the meeting. Both OpenAI and Anthropic confidentially filed for IPOs with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June. Neither company has disclosed additional details about when they plan to debut.

GPT-5.6, ChatGPT Work lift OpenAI's July ARR over Q2

OpenAI's revenue growth has surpassed second-quarter levels, driven by new product launches. The company is expanding its customer base to support significant AI infrastructure investments. OpenAI aims for substantial compute spending by 2030 and seeks Nvidia funding. Rival Anthropic also shows strong revenue growth with its coding assistant. Competition from Chinese developers like Moonshot AI is also increasing. OpenAI's annualised recurring revenue (ARR) in July exceeded the level recorded during the second quarter, Chief financial officer Sarah Friar told employees during an internal meeting, business news channel and website CNBC reported. According to the report, Friar said, "...Q2 was no slouch." as she highlighted the company's revenue growth. Alongside Friar, OpenAI's board chair, Bret Taylor, attributed the momentum to the launch of the GPT-5.6 series models, the company's enterprise AI agent ChatGPT Work, and growing adoption of its artificial intelligence (AI) coding tool, Codex. The update comes as OpenAI is seeking to sustain growth amid the intensified competition from rivals such as Anthropic and lower-cost open-weight AI models, the report said. CNBC stated that OpenAI is expanding its enterprise and developer customer base to generate the revenue needed to support its AI infrastructure investments. The company told investors in February that it plans to target roughly $600 billion in total compute spending by 2030. It also noted that OpenAI is in discussions with Nvidia for up to $250 billion in funding support to help finance plans to lease a large AI data centre in Ohio. OpenAI is under pressure to justify its $852 billion valuation ahead of a potential initial public offering (IPO). Both OpenAI and Anthropic have confidentially filed for IPOs with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, though neither company has disclosed a timeline for listing. The report also stated that Anthropic's growth has intensified competition in the enterprise AI market. As of May, Anthropic said its revenue run rate has exceeded the $47 billion generated during 2025, driven by adoption of its Claude Code coding assistant. During the meeting, Taylor acknowledged that Anthropic had established an early lead in AI coding tools but said OpenAI was seeing encouraging traction with Codex. "You're seeing people who went deep on Claude Code, ended up with a very high bill, and started looking for an alternative," Taylor said, according to CNBC. The report also noted that OpenAI faces growing competition from Chinese AI developers. Earlier this month, Moonshot AI introduced Kimi K3, which the company said narrows the gap with leading US AI models and outperforms OpenAI and Anthropic's most capable systems on selected benchmarks. CNBC reported that OpenAI's latest internal update was aimed at reassuring employees about the company's business performance as it continues to expand its enterprise AI offerings.