OpenAI's annualized recurring revenue nears $70 billion, source says


OpenAI logo and American flag are seen in this illustration taken, September 28, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Sept 29 (Reuters) - OpenAI's annualized recurring revenue is approaching $70 billion, driven by a ⁠more than twofold increase in enterprise sales since July, a source familiar ‌with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.

The startup's annualized revenue run rate has risen by more than 70% since the beginning of the third quarter in July, the source said, declining to be named ​as the matter was private.

OpenAI generated more consumer revenue ⁠in the third quarter than ⁠in all of last year, according to the source. Axios first reported the news.

Annualized ⁠revenue ‌run rate is sometimes misleading sales metric, which often involves multiplying one month's revenue by 12, but it has nonetheless become a popular metric commonly ⁠used by fast-growing Silicon Valley startups.

Shares of Oracle, OpenAI's critical ​computing infrastructure partner, were ‌5.3% higher.

"Oracle's fate is largely tied to the success of OpenAI, which ⁠represents around half ​of its compute backlog," said Gil Luria, managing director at equity research firm D.A. Davidson.

"OpenAI accelerating growth is a very good sign for Oracle, as it reinforces OpenAI's ability to ⁠live up to its expectations for compute capacity."

OpenAI and ​its rival Anthropic are preparing to go public, which could potentially give Wall Street a clearer view of their finances, including the sustainability of their rapid revenue growth due ⁠to the AI boom.

Anthropic reported a net loss of $42 billion in 2025 and plans to spend $518 billion on cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations in coming years, Reuters reported on Monday.

Anthropic's revenue grew 12-fold to nearly $4.6 billion in 2025. The startup expects to ​spend at least $518 billion over a decade building AI ⁠infrastructure with six partners.

The Claude maker's IPO prospectus also flagged risks associated with its AI ​models, which it said could exhibit "self-preserving behaviors" such ‌as attempts to "resist shutdown" to "conceal or manipulate information" ​and behavior "resembling blackmail".

(Reporting by Krystal Hu in San Francisco and Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

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