OpenAI Revenue Run Rate Nears $70 Billion Amid Fierce AI IPO Competition

OpenAI's annualized revenue is approaching $70 billion, a dramatic increase of more than 70% since the beginning of the third quarter, according to recent financial data cited by Axios. This rapid commercialization underscores the escalating competition with rival Anthropic as both AI leaders move closer to potential public market debuts.

Explosive Growth Metrics

The nearly $70 billion annualized figure, based on the company's most recent monthly performance, marks a substantial leap from the $40 billion run rate reported by Bloomberg and Forbes just last month. The growth appears broad-based, with business-to-business revenue reportedly climbing over 100% since July 2026.

According to the Axios report, consumer revenue generated in the third quarter alone has already surpassed the company's total consumer revenue for all of 2025. Key drivers include enterprise demand, subscriptions, and its Codex coding tool. However, the report noted a lack of visibility into OpenAI's expenses, leaving its profitability trajectory unclear.

Anthropic Accelerates IPO Push

The new figures for OpenAI arrive as its primary competitor, Anthropic, accelerates its own path to the public markets. Anthropic's annualized revenue run rate surpassed $65 billion by the end of July, a more than sevenfold increase from its pace at the end of 2025.

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A draft IPO prospectus reviewed by Reuters revealed that Anthropic's booked revenue grew twelvefold to nearly $4.6 billion in 2025. The filing also disclosed significant future commitments, including $518 billion in cloud and computing obligations.

Implications for Public Markets

With both AI labs still private, investors are increasingly turning to their publicly traded partners as proxies. Following the Axios report, shares in Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), which has deep cloud infrastructure ties to OpenAI, jumped 7%. Similarly, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) reported $24.1 billion in revenue from its commercial arrangements with OpenAI for fiscal-year 2026, illustrating the massive financial scale of these partnerships.

The impending initial public offerings are seen as critical tests for the sector. Anthropic's listing will establish the first public-market valuation benchmark for a pure-play generative AI company. A potential OpenAI IPO would force the disclosure of audited financials, providing crucial insight into the industry's underlying profitability and validating the historic infrastructure spending by cloud and semiconductor firms.