- OpenAI’s CFO said Thursday $11 billion in revenue is “definitely in the realm of possibility” for 2025.
- Sarah Friar told CNBC that OpenAI’s weekly active users have jumped 33% since December.
- Friar said the AI industry is “far from being a commodity” due to its frequent product launches.
OpenAI may be burning through cash, but its chief financial officer has said hitting $11 billion in revenue this year is “definitely in the realm of possibility.”
Reaching $11 billion in sales this year would mean around a threefold increase of OpenAI’s 2024 revenue.
CFO Sarah Friar told CNBC Thursday that OpenAI hit $1 billion in revenue in 2023, then “over 3X-ed” the following year. That’s in line with the $3.7 billion revenue that OpenAI had projected for 2024, per previous media reports.
Despite increasing competition from the likes of China’s DeepSeek, OpenAI’s weekly active users have jumped 33% since December to reach 400 million, about 5% of the world’s population, Friar told CNBC.
The growth metrics come as OpenAI is in talks with SoftBank for a $40 billion investment that would value the ChatGPT maker at around $300 billion.
“Investors look not just at your growth rate when you’re young like us, but they say, ‘what could this company look like over the next five years?'” Friar said. “And that’s allowing us, as we talk to investors, to be able to achieve valuations that are, I think, on par with the growth rate and the scale that we’re achieving.”
When asked about rising competition and increasingly similar outputs from rival AI models, Friar dismissed concerns about the industry becoming commoditized.
“We are so far from being a commodity industry,” Friar said. She added that OpenAI’s “numbers kind of prove that there is a reinforcement cycle here as we get better and better at innovating,” pointing to its recent releases like Deep Research and Operator.
The company announced on Friday a wider international rollout of its Operator AI agent to ChatGPT Pro subscribers. The tool, which performs tasks autonomously like booking tickets and making reservations, will be available in most regions where ChatGPT operates.
While OpenAI has grown its revenues over consecutive years, its losses have also mounted. In September, the New York Times reported that OpenAI was on track to lose $5 billion in 2024.
The company is also facing an unsolicited takeover bid from Elon Musk, a cofounder who left the company in 2018. Last week, OpenAI’s board rejected the $97.4 billion offer.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment.
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