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Openai’s annual recurring revenue almost doubled to $10 billion after demand for the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT.
According to Openai, the company’s ARR has skyrocketed from the $5.5 billion mark that hit late last year’s forecast revenue measure from subscriptions over a year.
Openai has grown at a fierce pace since launching ChatGpt in late 2022. Chatbot is the fastest consumer app to reach 100 million active users every week and currently claims over 500mn.
This trajectory is reflected by other major AI groups, including the Coding Tools Cursor, which competed from under $100 million in 2024 to $500 million in ARR this year. Another rival, humanity, is ahead of its 2025 revenue target.
Repeated revenue growth suggests that AI tools are beginning to justify the hype that has surrounded them over the past two years.
Nevertheless, all three have lost money. Startups have won a portion because investors are willing to write unprecedented size checks.
Openai is in the process of raising $400 billion from SoftBank and other investors, while Anthropic is backed by Google, Amazon and many top venture capital companies. Cursor-Parent Anysphere recently raised $900 million from investors, including Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital, Accel and Andreessen Horowitz.
Spending from strategic investors and venture capitalists turbocharged the growth of a small number of AI companies.
Still, some regions may have slower adoption of AI tools.
According to Fintech Company Ramp, the percentage of US companies paying to use AI models has reached 40% to about 40% over the past two years. But that growth was first stuck in May for the first time in 10 months, and Lamp executives suggest that most groups willing to pay for services are already doing so.
According to documents shared with investors, Openai does not expect to make a profit until 2029, forecasting $125 billion in revenue.
According to a spokesman, the group’s recurring revenue comes from consumers paying for CHATGPT, approximately 3 million subscriptions from business and education customers, as well as OpenAI’s application programming interface (selling APIs).
The San Francisco-based company is expanding in multiple directions. In recent weeks, they’re in the process of acquiring IO, the hardware startup of former Apple design chief Sir Jony Ive, for $6.4 billion, and Windsurf, a rival to code editing company and cursor, said those familiar with the deal.
Openai is also working with Stargate’s Donald Trump administration. Stargate is a large data center project that Sam Altman’s chief executive claims to pay for further advances in technology.
CNBC first reported on Openai’s ARR milestones.
