OpenAI generated $10 billion in revenue during the third quarter of 2026, marking a nearly 50 percent increase from the previous quarter as its enterprise business doubled.
Revenue Grew to $10 Billion in the Third Quarter
The company shared its latest financial figures with investors on Tuesday, November 10, revealing that revenue grew from about $6.7 billion in the second quarter to $10 billion in the three months ending in September. Co-founder and president Greg Brockman, speaking at a Wall Street Journal tech conference on Wednesday, detailed how the company rebounded after a difficult start to the year.
Exclusive: OpenAI Q3 revenue hit $10 billion, up nearly 50% from the prior quarter Roughly the same q/q growth rate as Anthropic, which reported $17 billion in revenue, up 47%. Big momentum shift just as Anthropic prepares to IPO We break it down on DB Live today with OpenAI…
“If you look at what’s really changed this year, Q1 was pretty rough, Q2 was pretty rough—it really looked in many ways, like coding, we weren’t really even in the conversation,” said Greg Brockman, co-founder and president, adding that “We had Codex, but no one was talking about it,” and noting that “I think that we just kept our heads down and executed.”
By the third quarter, however, new tools for agentic software coding and the release of GPT-5.6 Sol and ChatGPT Work increased sales and usage. Enterprise sales surpassed consumer revenue, accounting for about 50 percent of the company’s total income, with Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar noting that enterprise revenue doubled quarter over quarter. OpenAI’s annualized revenue run rate reached approximately $50 billion.
we've updated our story with more details on openai's third quarter numbers and how it compares to anthropic oai operating loss when *including* stock based compensation is around -$13.5 billion in q3 anthropic's operating loss was -$567 million in q3https://t.co/wvxafpFoav
Major corporate clients now utilizing OpenAI include Goldman Sachs, Phillips, and State Farm, while usage has continued to grow at existing enterprise customers such as Cursor, DoorDash, Thermo Fisher, and LY Corporation. JPMorgan Chase is another enterprise partner collaborating with the company.
Widening Operating Losses and Infrastructure Costs
Despite the rapid top-line expansion, OpenAI’s operating losses widened to $10.9 billion in the third quarter, up from $10.1 billion in the prior period, according to financial documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
scoop – openai continued to suffer heavy losses in the third quarter, though it grew revenue by roughly 50% to $10 billion its operating margin improved from -150% to -109%, though that is still a long ways off from profitability story below:https://t.co/IYrzKFZXEk
The company reported that its adjusted operating margin improved to -109 percent from -150 percent in the second quarter. Financial documents reviewed by the press highlighted that massive computing infrastructure expenditures, daily inference costs for millions of active users, and frontier model research continue to require heavy capital commitments.
By its own internal forecasts, cumulative negative free cash flow from 2026 through 2030 is projected to reach $278 billion. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar noted earlier in the year that annualized revenue exceeded $20 billion in 2025 alongside approximately 1.9 gigawatts of available compute, emphasizing that revenue tracks directly with available compute capacity.
Anthropic Prepares for Its Initial Public Offering
The financial disclosures arrive as rival Anthropic prepares to mount its initial public offering. Anthropic recently reported third-quarter revenue of $16.96 billion while reporting a GAAP net loss of $23.29 billion, alongside a smaller operating loss of $567 million for the period.
Third-party data from OpenRouter indicates that spending share between OpenAI and Anthropic across roughly 120,000 shared enterprise customers was roughly even in September, whereas Anthropic had accounted for about three-quarters of that total at the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, Menlo Ventures published a November report showing that in the enterprise API market, Anthropic’s share rose from 40% to 55% while OpenAI’s moved from 27% to 31%.
OpenAI has discussed aiming to debut in 2027. Greg Brockman, co-founder and president, confirmed the timeline during his conference appearance when asked if the firm would be ready in 2027, replying, “I think so. Yes.” He further said that “We want to go public when it’s the right time for us,” and added, “We were really perceived as a consumer company, and a lot of the companies we’d start talking to would say, ‘Is OpenAI really committed to the enterprise?’ But it’s so different today.”
Earlier coverage: OpenAI to Acquire Pierre to Expand Codex Developer Infrastructure
