NederlandsOpenAI brings in 10 billion dollars in a single quarter for the first time
For the first time, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, brought in 10 billion dollars in revenue in a single quarter: from July to September 2026. That is almost 50 per cent more than the quarter before. Businesses in particular are paying more. OpenAI is not yet making a profit.
The revenue of OpenAI, the American company behind ChatGPT, came to 10 billion dollars, about 8.9 billion euros, in the three months from July to September 2026. The company has never brought in that much in a single quarter. Chief financial officer Sarah Friar called it an exceptionally strong quarter in an interview.
That is almost 50 per cent more than in the quarter before, when revenue was 6.7 billion dollars (about 6 billion euros), and almost three times as much as a year earlier. Between the first and second quarters, revenue grew by about 18 per cent.
Businesses drive the growth
The growth comes mainly from business customers: revenue from businesses doubled in a single quarter. As a result, half of the revenue now comes from businesses and half from ordinary users. Businesses pay mainly for AI that writes code, for help with security and for AI agents: programs that carry out tasks on their own. Tighter pricing, discounts and better models also help.
Revenue from ordinary users grew by 20 per cent. More than 100 million people have a paid subscription, and 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT every week.
No profit yet
OpenAI still spends more than it brings in, but the gap is getting smaller. The loss on its day-to-day operations in the second quarter was one and a half times as large as its revenue, and in the third quarter it was still slightly larger than revenue. The company calculates this itself, leaving some costs out.
OpenAI shared these figures with investors, and the news agency Bloomberg heard them from insiders. They are not public and have not been audited.
The revenue rate now stands at about 50 billion dollars (about 45 billion euros) a year. That is the revenue of the most recent period converted to a full year, not what OpenAI actually brought in over a year.
The competitor brings in more
Competitor Anthropic, the maker of Claude, had revenue of 17 billion dollars (about 15 billion euros) in the same quarter. At the end of October its revenue rate stood at 81 billion dollars (about 72 billion euros) a year, 10 billion more than a month earlier. Investors are keen on Anthropic too: at its stock market listing next week, they want to buy far more shares than are for sale.
The revenue rates of the two companies cannot be compared exactly. Anthropic also counts what large cloud companies, which resell AI through their own services, earn with its models. For part of such sales, OpenAI counts only its own share. OpenAI still has to build up sales through other cloud companies, because it was tied to a contract with Microsoft for a long time. Friar expects that to bring in a lot in 2027. OpenAI also competes with models from Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft, among others, and with cheaper open models, especially from China.
What does this mean for the road to the singularity?
Businesses are paying more and more for AI that does work on its own, such as writing code. That shows the models are becoming good enough to really take over work. OpenAI still spends more than it brings in. The faster revenue grows, the longer the company can keep investing in new and better models. The next quarter will show whether the growth continues.
What is the technological singularity? Read the explanation →
