What is OpenAI?
The AI research and deployment company behind ChatGPT and the GPT family of foundation models.
- Category
- AI / Foundation Models
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, CA
- Founded
- December 2015
- Employees
- ~4,500
- Total funding
- ~$180B disclosed
- Valuation
- $852B (Mar 2026); IPO filed targeting ~$1T
What is OpenAI?
OpenAI is the San Francisco AI research and product company that builds the GPT family of foundation models and ChatGPT, the most widely used consumer AI product in the world. As of early 2026 it reached roughly $25B in annualized revenue, around 900 million weekly active ChatGPT users, and more than 9 million paying business users, on its way to a confidentially filed IPO targeting a valuation around $1 trillion.
OpenAI trains large frontier models — the GPT-4o multimodal models, the o-series reasoning models, and its current GPT-5.5 flagship (released April 2026) — and ships them through ChatGPT, a developer API, and enterprise products. ChatGPT crossed roughly 900M weekly active users by February 2026, up from 800M in late 2025 and 700M in mid-2025, putting it on pace for 1 billion before year-end and making OpenAI the front door to generative AI for consumers, developers, and large enterprises alike.
The business scaled from an estimated ~$3.7B in revenue in 2024 to roughly $13B in 2025 and about $25B in annualized revenue by February 2026 (~$2B/month), with more than 1 million organizations using its technology. Consumer subscriptions still drive the majority of revenue, but enterprise has grown to more than 40% of the mix and is on track toward parity by the end of 2026.
OpenAI sits at the center of the AI platform race against Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, and xAI. It pairs a research lead with one of the largest compute build-outs in the industry (the Stargate data-center program), funded by a historic capital base anchored by SoftBank, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Amazon — even as inference costs hold its gross margin near 33% and drive projected cash burn of roughly $27B in 2026.
What does OpenAI offer?
OpenAI offers ChatGPT (Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise), a developer API for its GPT-5.5 and o-series models, coding and agent products, and image/video/audio generation tools.
- ChatGPT (consumer)· Product
- ChatGPT Business & Enterprise· Product
- OpenAI API / Platform· Developer
- GPT-5.5 & o-series models· Models
- GPT-4o (multimodal)· Models
- Codex (coding agent)· Developer
- Sora (video generation)· Media
- DALL·E (image generation)· Media
- Whisper (speech-to-text)· Media
- Realtime / voice API· Developer
- Embeddings & fine-tuning· Developer
- OpenAI Startup Fund· Investing
How does OpenAI make money?
OpenAI makes money primarily from ChatGPT subscriptions (consumer and enterprise) plus usage-based API revenue, with consumer subscriptions historically the largest share and enterprise the fastest-growing.
Consumer and team subscriptions anchor revenue across a six-tier lineup. ChatGPT Plus is $20/month and has held that price since 2023; OpenAI added a mid-tier ChatGPT Pro at $100/month in April 2026 alongside the existing $200/month Pro; ChatGPT Business runs $20-25 per user/month; and ChatGPT Enterprise is custom-priced. To widen the top of the funnel, OpenAI also ships a low-cost ChatGPT Go tier (around $8/month, first rolled out in markets such as India).
The developer API is metered by tokens (varying by model) and is estimated at roughly 15-20% of total revenue, while newer lines include limited advertising on free tiers and content/licensing partnerships. Growth is driven by converting free ChatGPT users into paid Plus/Pro seats, landing-and-expanding inside enterprises (9M+ paying business users, 1M+ organizations), and rising API consumption from companies building on the models.
The catch is unit economics: OpenAI's adjusted gross margin fell from ~40% in 2024 to ~33% in 2025 as inference costs roughly quadrupled (about $8.4B in 2025, projected ~$14.1B in 2026). OpenAI funds that gap through its massive capital raises and the Stargate compute build-out, and is not expected to be cash-flow positive until around 2030.
Who leads OpenAI?
OpenAI is led by co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, alongside co-founder and President Greg Brockman, COO Brad Lightcap, CFO Sarah Friar, Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil, and Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki.
- Sam AltmanCo-Founder & CEO2015-present (CEO since 2019)Former president of Y Combinator; sets company strategy and is the public face of OpenAI.
- Greg BrockmanCo-Founder & President2015-presentFormer CTO of Stripe; oversees technical strategy and the Stargate infrastructure/compute build-out.
- Brad LightcapChief Operating Officer2018-presentRuns global operations, go-to-market, revenue, and external/business partnerships.
- Sarah FriarChief Financial Officer2024-presentFormer CEO of Nextdoor and CFO of Square (Block); leads finance, capital markets, and IPO readiness.
- Kevin WeilChief Product Officer2024-presentFormer product leader at Instagram, Twitter, and Planet; owns ChatGPT and API product.
- Jakub PachockiChief Scientist2017-present (Chief Scientist since 2024)Long-time OpenAI researcher who succeeded Ilya Sutskever as chief scientist, leading frontier model research.
How do you contact OpenAI's leadership?
OpenAI's verified public press address is press@openai.com. The most common employee email pattern is first@openai.com (with first.last@openai.com also in use); the individual addresses below follow that verified pattern and are NOT individually published or confirmed, so treat them as best-guess, not verified.
first@openai.comHow much funding has OpenAI raised?
OpenAI has raised roughly $180B in disclosed capital (equity plus debt) across more than a dozen rounds since 2015, and was valued at $852B in its March 2026 round; in June 2026 it confidentially filed for an IPO targeting a valuation around $1 trillion.
OpenAI launched in December 2015 as a nonprofit with ~$1B pledged by backers including Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, and AWS. After forming a capped-profit arm, it took $1B from Microsoft in July 2019, then a reported ~$10B tranche from Microsoft in January 2023 (lifting Microsoft's cumulative commitment to about $13B, at a ~$29B valuation), alongside a ~$300M employee tender in April 2023 led by Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, and Founders Fund.
The scale-up rounds came fast. In October 2024 OpenAI raised $6.6B at a $157B valuation, led by Thrive Capital with Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank, Altimeter, Khosla, Fidelity, and MGX, plus a $4B revolving credit facility from banks including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Citi. In March 2025 it closed a $40B round at a $300B valuation led by SoftBank (which committed $30B, with a $10B investor syndicate) — the largest private tech raise on record at the time — and a later secondary lifted the implied value to roughly $500B by October 2025.
The latest round closed on March 31, 2026: $122B at an $852B post-money valuation, co-led by SoftBank and Andreessen Horowitz, with Amazon committing ~$50B and Nvidia and SoftBank each ~$30B, plus Microsoft, D.E. Shaw, MGX, TPG, and T. Rowe Price-advised accounts (and roughly $3B from retail investors). On June 8, 2026 OpenAI confidentially filed an S-1 with the SEC, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley leading and a target valuation of roughly $730B-$1T, eyeing a public listing in late 2026.
How did OpenAI get here?
From a 2015 nonprofit research lab to ChatGPT's launch and an $852B valuation with an IPO on file.
- Dec 2015OpenAI foundedLaunched in San Francisco as a nonprofit AI research lab with ~$1B pledged by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, AWS and others.
- Jul 2019Microsoft invests $1BMicrosoft makes its first $1B investment and becomes OpenAI's exclusive cloud (Azure) partner.
- Nov 2022ChatGPT launchesChatGPT is released and reaches ~100M users within two months, the fastest-growing consumer app at the time.
- Oct 2024$6.6B round at $157BThrive Capital leads a $6.6B raise (with Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank) plus a $4B bank credit line.
- Mar 2025$40B SoftBank round at $300BSoftBank leads a record $40B private round (its largest ever), funding the Stargate compute build-out.
- Oct 2025Restructures into OpenAI Group PBCFor-profit reorganizes into a public benefit corporation controlled by the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation; Microsoft holds ~27%.
- Mar 2026$122B round at $852B; IPO filedCloses $122B (Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank) at an $852B valuation; confidentially files for an IPO in June 2026 targeting ~$1T.
Who are OpenAI's competitors?
OpenAI competes with other frontier-model labs and AI assistants — Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, xAI, Mistral, and DeepSeek.
- AnthropicClosest frontier-lab rival; Claude (Opus 4.8) is positioned on safety, reasoning, and enterprise/coding strength and topped intelligence leaderboards in mid-2026.
- Google DeepMindGemini (3.1 Pro) models with deep distribution across Search, Workspace, Android, and Google Cloud.
- Meta AIOpen-weights Llama models distributed free across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
- xAIGrok (4.3) models tightly integrated with X and Musk's ecosystem, emphasizing real-time data and cost-conscious, agentic use.
- Mistral AIEuropean lab offering efficient open-weight models, popular for on-prem and sovereign deployments.
- DeepSeekChinese lab competing aggressively on price with strong open reasoning models.
OpenAI — frequently asked questions
